hostapd

Start an access point

$ sudo hostapd [path/to/hostapd.conf]

Start an access point, forking into the background

$ sudo hostapd -B [path/to/hostapd.conf]

hostapd [-hdBKtv] [-P <PID file>] <configuration file(s)>

This manual page documents briefly the hostapd daemon.

hostapd is a user space daemon for access point and authentication servers. It implements IEEE 802.11 access point management, IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticators and RADIUS authentication server. The current version supports Linux (Host AP, mac80211-based drivers) and FreeBSD (net80211).

hostapd is designed to be a "daemon" program that runs in the background and acts as the backend component controlling authentication. hostapd supports separate frontend programs and an example text-based frontend, hostapd_cli, is included with hostapd.

A summary of options is included below. For a complete description, run hostapd from the command line.

-h

Show usage.

-d

Show more debug messages.

-dd

Show even more debug messages.

-B

Run daemon in the background.

-P <PID file>

Path to PID file.

-K

Include key data in debug messages.

-t

Include timestamps in some debug messages.

-v

Show hostapd version.

hostapd_cli(1).

hostapd was written by Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>.

This manual page was written by Faidon Liambotis <faidon@cube.gr>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).