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AccessPoint.md

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Promote Raspberry PI based gateway as a WiFi access point

I found several method to got this working but despite my best efforts, I was unable to get any of those tutorials to work reliably on their own until I found this article. The procedure here works with Raspberry PI Zero W and Debian Stretch.

It may work (or not) with other PI model or OS version.

I copied the procedure from original article to have a backup in case and also to adapt to my needs.

Other solutions I tried with mitigated success on PI Zero is excellent RaspAP-webgui to make access point. It may works perfecttly for RPI 3 but still issues with PI Zero.

Pi Zero W with Raspbian Stretch Procedure

Create new network interface for Access Point (ap0)

Create/edit the file /etc/udev/rules.d/90-wireless.rules, and add the following line.

ACTION=="add|change", SUBSYSTEM=="ieee80211", KERNEL=="phy0", RUN+="/sbin/iw phy %k interface add ap0 type __ap"

Install the packages you need for DNS, Access Point and Firewall rules.

sudo apt-get install -y hostapd dnsmasq iptables-persistent

Configure the DNS server

Edit the file /etc/dnsmasq.conf that should be like that, I kept the comments has a reminder to activate some features

interface=lo,ap0
no-dhcp-interface=lo,wlan0
bind-interfaces
server=8.8.8.8
domain-needed
bogus-priv
dhcp-range=192.168.50.50,192.168.50.100,12h

#dhcp-leasefile=/tmp/dnsmasq.leases
#address=/*.apple.com/192.168.50.1
#address=/*.icloud.com/192.168.50.1
#address=/#/192.168.50.1

###### logging ############
# own logfile
#log-facility=/var/log/dnsmasq.log
# log-async
# log dhcp infos
#log-dhcp
# debugging dns

After that my AP is distributing address from 192.168.50.50 to 192.168.50.100

Setup the Access Point configuration

Edit the file /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf that should be like that

ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0
interface=ap0
driver=nl80211
ssid=_AP_SSID_
hw_mode=g
channel=9
wmm_enabled=0
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=_AP_PASSWORD_
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP CCMP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
country_code=FR

Replace _AP_SSID_ with the SSID you want for your access point. Replace _AP_PASSWORD_ with the password for your access point. Make sure it has enough characters to be a legal password! (8 characters minimum) else hostapd won't start.

Change also country_code to your own country

Edit the file /etc/default/hostapd to enable service to start correctly

#DAEMON_OPTS=" -f /tmp/hostapd.log"
DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

Set up the client wifi (station) on wlan0.

Create or edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. The contents depend on whether your home network is open, WEP or WPA/2. It is probably WPA2, and so should look like:

    country=FR
    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1    

    network={
      ssid="_ST_SSID_"
      psk="_ST_PASSWORD_"
      id_str="_MYAP_"
    }

Replace _ST_SSID_ with your router SSID and _ST_PASSWORD_ with your wifi password (in clear text). id_str is a name you'll need later, replace _MYAP_ by the logical name you want.

Change also country to your own country

Set up the network inferfaces

Edit the file /etc/network/interfaces. Mine looks like that:

# Include files from /etc/network/interfaces.d:
source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d

auto lo
auto ap0
auto wlan0
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
    wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface _MYAP_ inet dhcp

allow-hotplug ap0
iface ap0 inet static
    address 192.168.50.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

Replace _MYAP_ with the logical name you put in the file wpa_supplicant.conf

Set up boot order and/or workaround

Make sure do disable dhcpcd with

sudo update-rc.d dhcpcd disable

Edit /etc/rc.local and add the following lines just before # Print the IP Address

ifdown --force wlan0 && ifdown --force ap0 && ifup ap0 && ifup wlan0
sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.50.0/24 ! -d 192.168.50.0/24 -j MASQUERADE
systemctl restart dnsmasq
iwconfig wlan0 power off

Optional, add AP display on OLED software

If you have enabled OLED, you may need to change the following line in /opt/loragw/oled.py according to the connected network interface you have to add the ap0 interface

Mine is wlan0 for WiFi and ap0 for WiFi access point

draw.text((col1, line1),"Host :%s" % socket.gethostname(), font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line2), lan_ip("wlan0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line3), network("wlan0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line4), lan_ip("uap0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line5), network("uap0"),  font=font10, fill=255)

if for example it's running from RPI 3 with eth0 code could be

draw.text((col1, line1),"Host :%s" % socket.gethostname(), font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line2), lan_ip("eth0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line3), network("eth0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line4), lan_ip("ap0"),  font=font10, fill=255)
draw.text((col1, line5), network("ap0"),  font=font10, fill=255)