Using pi to host small wireless network - Hostapd configuration not working

Question

I am trying to set up a small wifi network (offline) using the guide found here. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/access-point.md

Below I have given my terminal window to show my process and the problem I am having

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo su root
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nano /etc/hostapd.conf
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# sudo systemctl restart dhcpcd
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf.orig 
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# mv /etc/dnsmasq.conf.orig /etc/dnsmasq.conf
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl reload dnsmasq
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# sudo nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# sudo nano /etc/default/hostapd
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl unmask hostapd
syroot@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl enable hostapd
Synchronizing state of hostapd.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable hostapd
systemctl root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl start hostapd
Job for hostapd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status hostapd.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl status hostapd.service
● hostapd.service - Advanced IEEE 802.11 AP and IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticator
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/hostapd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2019-05-17 12:12:37 BST; 1s ago
  Process: 3140 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/hostapd -P /run/hostapd.pid -B $DAEMON_OPTS ${DAEMON_CONF} (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

May 17 12:12:37 raspberrypi systemd[1]: hostapd.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
May 17 12:12:37 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start Advanced IEEE 802.11 AP and IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticator.
May 17 12:12:37 raspberrypi systemd[1]: hostapd.service: Unit entered failed state.
May 17 12:12:37 raspberrypi systemd[1]: hostapd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# systemctl start hostapd

I have re-imaged and started again twice! Anyone able to help?

You claim to have followed a Foundation tutorial, but what you have posted never appears in the tutorial. Thy running as posted. — Milliways, May 17 '19 at 13:01
Read down beyond hostapd install that has already been run. I ran as posted twice — GigaJoules, May 20 '19 at 07:31
NOTHING in the tutorial tells you to run as root - indeed no responsible advice would suggest this. The tutorial works when run as posted. — Milliways, May 20 '19 at 07:55
Turns out I had missed the removal of a comment hash at Find the line with #DAEMON_CONF, and replace it with this:
DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf" — GigaJoules, May 20 '19 at 08:53

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 17 '19 at 16:47

If you have problems getting hostapd to work together with all the other additional components, then there is way to setup what you want without it. With build-in systemd-networkd you have all needed components without installing additional helpers. How to do it you can look at Setting up a Raspberry Pi as an access point - the easy way.

Using pi to host small wireless network - Hostapd configuration not working

1 Answers1