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I have laptop Lenovo Thinkpad t61p with Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Mini-PCI Express Adapter that served by iwlegacy (module iwl4965) drivers.

I have LAN internet connection that I want to share over WiFi. I've installed Arch Linux and NetworkManager. And I followed the guide:

  1. Install the dnsmasq package to be able to actually share the connection.
  2. Click on nm-applet -> Create new wireless network.
  3. Follow wizard (if using WEP be sure to use 5 or 13 character long password, different lengths will fail).
  4. Settings will remain stored for the next time you need it.

After It there wifi ad-hoc connection is turned on. And other devices can see it. But there is no actual network inside. There is no DHCP requests and response. There is no actual ping and working DNS server.

iw list modes (full output of iw list):

    Supported interface modes:
             * IBSS
             * managed
             * monitor

So if I'm right ad-hoc should work at least.

I see some errors with trace in logs: http://pastie.org/private/0ypnqg11nwguektki1yog

So questions:

  1. Is it possible to create Real AP on my wlan adapter?
  2. Is it possible to create Ad-Hoc on my wlan adapter?
  3. What should I do to reach above goals?

P.S. By the way. It is possible to connect to created ad-hoc network with any password. But I'm not sure may be it is the way that ad-hoc should work.

2 Answers 2

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The linux driver for the Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 chipset has no support for AP mode. IBSS (which is listed in your 'supported interface modes' quote) is another name for the Ad-Hoc mode.

For more information compare https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlegacy with https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi

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As detailed on the Arch wiki:

The actual Wifi link is established via the hostapd package (available in the official repositories). The package has WPA2 support.

Adjust the options in hostapd configuration file if necessary. Especially, change the ssid and the wpa_passphrase. See hostapd Linux documentation page for more information.

Below is a sample hostapd.conf:

/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
-------------------------
ssid=YourWifiName
wpa_passphrase=Somepassphrase
interface=wlan0
bridge=br0
auth_algs=3
channel=7
driver=nl80211
hw_mode=g
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=2
max_num_sta=5
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
wpa=2
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP CCMP

From there, you'll need to set up networking. If the wired connection is private, you'll likely want to set up a bridge, while if the wired connection is public facing, you'll want to set up NAT. All this is linked and detailed from the first Arch wiki page linked above.

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  • The key problem is driver: driver=nl80211. I'm not sure that iwl4965 compatible with nl80211. I catch an error: nl80211: Could not configure driver mode nl80211 driver initialization failed.
    – petRUShka
    May 2, 2014 at 18:21
  • You should replace the driver line with one appropriate for your hardware: driver=iwl4965 or something similar.
    – ND Geek
    May 5, 2014 at 12:17
  • iwl4965 is not supported by hostapd
    – petRUShka
    May 5, 2014 at 16:16

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