How to Set up an Access Point with Hostapd

In this tutorial, I will show you how to set up a Wi-Fi Access Point using hostapd, a popular open-source software package for creating Wi-Fi networks on Linux systems.

Install Hostapd & Dnsmasq

For the Access Point to work, you’ll need two items:

• hostapd — the Access Point software.
• dnsmasq — a DHCP server that will provide IP addresses to the clients.

So, start up the Linux system, and in the terminal type:

apt install dnsmasq hostapd

Set up the Access Point

Run the “iwconfig” command to see the available wireless network interfaces (wlan0, wlan1…).

Use a wireless device that supports Access Point Mode. In my case, I am using a wireless adapter with chipset Atheros AR9271 with interface name wlan0.

Once you have identified your wireless interface, set up the configuration files using the nano text editor in the terminal.

nano dnsmasq.conf