Testing simulated Wi-Fi with hostap
From: Pavlin Georgiev <hidden>
Date: 2018-09-09 17:22:37
Hi, I am a software tester who decided to experiment with hostap. I am not a C++ programmer, but I have general understanding of that language. My Linux distro is Fedora 27. My goal is to test network connections with various authentication methods between a simulated Wi-Fi access point and a station. I would like to test on a physical/virtual machine without Wi-Fi adapter. One testing machine contains both - the access point and the station. What I did so far? I read the documentation... https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/documentation/hostapd http://w1.fi/hostapd/ https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/mac80211_hwsim I installed hostap: yum install hostapd I loaded the module: modprobe mac80211_hwsim I check network devices: # nmcli device DEVICE TYPE STATE CONNECTION virbr0 bridge connected virbr0 enp7s0 ethernet connected enp7s0 vnet0 tun connected vnet0 wlan0 wifi disconnected -- wlan1 wifi disconnected -- lo loopback unmanaged -- virbr0-nic tun unmanaged -- hwsim0 unknown unmanaged -- When I follow the steps from the https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/mac80211_hwsim#simple_example[simple example] from the documentation then I receive message: Configuration file: hostapd.conf nl80211: Could not configure driver mode nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0 nl80211 driver initialization failed. wlan0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED wlan0: AP-DISABLED hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan0 wasn't started When I try to load module nl80211 manually then I see: modprobe: FATAL: Module nl80211 not found in directory /lib/modules/4.13.16-302.fc27.x86_64 I try another configuration taken from gitweb: http://w1.fi/cgit/hostap/tree/tests/hwsim When I load hostapd with configuration "bss-1.conf" then I receive message: Configuration file: bss-1.conf Could not read interface wlan3 flags: No such device nl80211: Driver does not support authentication/association or connect commands nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan3 disabled_11b_rates=0 Could not read interface wlan3 flags: No such device nl80211 driver initialization failed. wlan3: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED wlan3: AP-DISABLED hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan3 wasn't started When I replace interface wlan3 with wlan0 and I run hostapd with configuration "bss-1.conf" then I receive message: Configuration file: bss-1.conf nl80211: Could not configure driver mode nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0 nl80211 driver initialization failed. wlan0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED wlan0: AP-DISABLED hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan0 wasn't started Questions 1. Why does hostapd fail to start? 2. Which of the interfaces wlan0 and wlan1 should be the AP? 3. What configuration should be taken as example for simulated AP and station? 4. How to troubleshoot the initial loading of hostapd? Details kernel-4.13.16-302.fc27.x86_64 hostapd-2.6-9.fc27.x86_64 Thank you in advance for any advice. Pavlin