Using hostapd on one virtual interface and normal sta mode on another?

[Mark Cave-Ayland]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to configure a single USB device with two virtual 
interfaces under Debian Wheezy: one in STA mode (connected to a local 
wireless LAN) and one in AP mode (bridged into a local wired LAN) and 
struggling when trying to setup the virtual interfaces.

I've been using the following two guides in order to try and get this 
working with some success:

http://linuxalfi.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/connectify-for-linux-with-single-wireless-interface/

http://www.candelatech.com/vsta.php

Using these guides I can add two virtual interfaces for one physical 
device, however I can't seem to find a working configuration when both 
the STA mode virtual interface and hostapd virtual interface are active.

My first question: is this a supported configuration? I've tried using 
both ath9k_htc and rt2800usb drivers in this way under a 3.11 kernel 
without success, although it seems that I can run wpa_supplicant/hostapd 
on their virtual interfaces independently without any issues.

If this is a valid configuration, my next question is what is the 
correct way to set up the virtual interfaces? The above guides both 
suggest adding an interface of type __ap to the device and pointing 
hostapd at them, whereas the output of hostapd suggests that it should 
determine this information based upon the phy capabilities (e.g. using a 
hardware sta/p2p interface as queried from the driver).


Many thanks,

Mark.