Hostap will load but WILL NOT create the wlan0 interface

[Karl Auer]

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:36:07 -0600
"Jerry" <mrcool at stupidgamerz.com> wrote:
> I still have not gotten hostap to create the interface wlan0.

I'm no guru, but all I had to do to get SuSE 8.0 to use the interface properly (apart from compiling the software and putting the modules in the right place, obviously) was set up /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0:

BOOTPROTO="dhcp"
WIRELESS="yes"
STARTMODE="onboot"
WIRELESS_MODE="managed"
WIRELESS_ESSID="XXXXXXX"
WIRELESS_KEY="XXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Putting WIRELESS="yes" in there tells SuSE to run iwconfig to set the mode, essid etc after loading the modules, and it's that that actually "creates" the interface. You can hack the source to change the interface name if you don't like wlan0, or just rename the interface in /etc/modules.conf. These lines in /etc/modules.conf will let you use the hostap drivers and end up with an interface called eth1:

alias eth1 hostap_pci
post-install eth1 ip link set wlan0 name eth1

Remember you need to have ifcfg-eth1 in that case, not ifcfg-wlan0!

If this doesn't work out of the box, you might have to install the latest versions of the wireless tools (which is a good idea annyway).

To do all this manually (at least for a built in card, there are additional steps for PCMCIA I guess):

- compile and install the hostap drivers
- modify /etc/modules.conf appropriately
- depmod -a
- load the hostap modules
- iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
- iwconfig wlan0 essid XXXXXXX   <-- if necessary
- ifconfig wlan0 key XXXXXX      <-- if necessary
- ifconfig [insert appropriate IP setup here]
- route [insert appropriate routing setup here]

Regards, K.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +41-43-2660706 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +41- 1-6327531 (w)