create a AP-hotspot from a wireless connection

Question

I need to create an AP-hotspot from a wireless connection. I use an external wifi adapter connected to my USB port on my laptop as a source for network connection. What I need to do is to extend that signal to my peripherals (=android phone. not rooted) using my inbuilt wireless network card on my laptop for broadcasting. I've installed hostapd and used the AP-hotspot script. Although it did create the hotspot and my phone was able to connect to it, it wouldn't let me use my external wireless card as a source for internet connection at the same time as using my inbuilt card for broadcasting or repeating the signal, which is what I need to do. Any suggestions, help or links related to this issue would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I just tried this out to verify that it works. No hostapd and no script. (I tried wp5.sh but it wouldn't work.) Sharing wifi from a wireless router to my laptop internal card (wlan0) to an acer chromebook from the laptop usb (wlan1). For some reason I couldn't get my internal card (wlan0) to broadcast.

• Click on the network-manager indicator and select "create new wifi network" from the dropdown menu.
• I first selected the wlan1 card and named the network "pineapples".
• I have it set to ad-hoc and under ipv4 it's set to "share connection with other computers", no security.

Also, I clicked to connect from the chromebook while "pineapples" was still resolving as soon as the network appeared; then, the two computers connected to each other.

• If the laptop drops or doesn't connect to "pineapples", it should still be listed as an available network from the network-manager dropdown list. Click on "pineapples" and while it is resolving, connect to "pineapples" from the other device.

At first, nothing would resolve but I clicked on my wlan0 network to reset the connection to the router and now both computers have internet.

Answer 2

Solved! All I needed to do was to configure the hostapd.conf file with minimal settings, no script or additional applications required. What I did was that I first created an Ad-hoc network with Network Manager, as described in previous answer, and made sure I was connected to it on wlan0 and that I still had access to internet through wlan1. I then created the etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf file with typical configuration and set hostapd to start up at boot (see step 1 from How to setup an Access Point mode Wi-Fi Hotspot? ). I then started hostapd through terminal and the AP-hotspot was created instantly, detected on all my devices and able to connect with access to internet. That's all! No need to install conflicting software, forwarding IP:s etc, since Network Manager already taken care of the settings when setting up the ad-hoc network and hostapd automatically reuses those settings when creating the AP-hotspot.