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I am running OpenSuse linux 13.1, it has KNetworkmanager to control the network.

Now this seems like an eay task (my cell phone can do it with 1 push on a button). I am connected by cable and I want my phone to be able to access the internet through WiFi.

I googled around and I found out this is sometimes called an ad-hoc network. So I created a new wireless network, set mode to ad-hoc, no security (for now). But nothing happens, it just stands there between all my other configured networks... Am I missing a simple button press (I surely hope so).

I googled a bit further and found hostapd. I was reluctant to start scripting for this, it should be able to be done through the gui no? Anyway, based on the instructions found here, I checked some things.

?lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i "network"
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 AGN
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi

>modinfo ath9k | grep 'depend'
depends:        ath9k_hw,ath9k_common,mac80211,ath,cfg80211

>hostapd /home/dorien/.hostapd-test.conf 
Configuration file: /home/dorien/.hostapd-test.conf
nl80211: Failed to set interface wlp1s0 into AP mode
nl80211 driver initialization failed.

Probably my driver is not supported? was not the way to go? Did I use a wrong driver?

with .hostapd-test.conf being: 
interface=wlp1s0
driver=nl80211
ssid=test
channel=1

Is the latter the way to go or can I get ad-hoc to work?

Thanks for any suggestions.

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  • Did you try stopping NetworkManager beforehand? Or somehow make it ignore your Wifi card? I have the same card and will post my hostapd.conf later.
    – Daniel B
    Mar 19, 2014 at 11:06
  • No I didn't stop networkmanager before. Do I need to you think?
    – dorien
    Mar 19, 2014 at 11:50

1 Answer 1

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Well, from further testing it's pretty obvious something (NetworkManager, most likely) else is blocking access to the Wifi card. I reproduced the exact same message by being connected (via netctl and wpa_supplicant) and firing up hostapd.

Here's my config file, stripped of comments. I modified only the relevant parts, the rest is as provided by Arch Linux.

And because I recently used the card in AP mode for an extended time span, I can also warn you: There's an unresolved firmware bug that occurs randomly and results in a complete loss of connectivity. Fortunately, the driver detects this and resets the card.

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