Is there a way to debug wireless access point issues that was setup with hostapd?

I am trying to setup a wireless access point with a home PC. I replaced my old Intel wifi link 5100 with Atheros AR9462. I recently did a fresh Ubuntu Server 16.04 install.

To setup wireless access point I installed hostapd and created a simple configuration

# cat /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf 
interface=wlp3s0
driver=nl80211
ssid=mytestnetwork
channel=1
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=0

And here is how my network interfaces are configured:

# cat /etc/network/interfaces
source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto enp1s0
iface enp1s0 inet dhcp

auto wlp3s0
iface wlp3s0 inet static
address 10.10.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0

After these configurations, I rebooted the device. My network is active (checked via /etc/init.d/networking status). hostapd (checked via service hostapd status) seems to be running fine. However, I cannot event detect the wireless access point from any other device.

My wireless card is functioning in master mode:

# iwconfig
wlp3s0    IEEE 802.11abgn  Mode:Master  Tx-Power=19 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

lo        no wireless extensions.

enp1s0    no wireless extensions.

My network hardware results look like the following:

# lshw -C network
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       logical name: enp1s0
       version: 07
       serial: 00:e0:4c:68:18:fd
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=192.168.1.6 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
       resources: irq:120 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:a0004000-a0004fff memory:a0000000-a0003fff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlp3s0
       version: 01
       serial: 44:c3:06:31:a7:b0
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=4.4.0-62-generic firmware=N/A ip=10.10.0.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
       resources: irq:18 memory:81200000-8127ffff memory:81280000-8128ffff

How can I troubleshoot this issue further and find out what is going wrong?

Solution 1:

Try stopping hostapd with service hostapd stop and starting it manually (as root) with hostapd -d /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf. This will make hostapd startup in the foreground and print any log messages to the terminal so that you can check for any errors/problems.

There is also a suggestion that NetworkManager can get in the way when you try to setup hostapd yourself: https://gist.github.com/Semant1ka/ee087c2bd1fbf6b0287c3307b8d4f291 . So you could quickly rule that out, i.e. run service network-manager stop and try again.

Also, on another device, you can try running iwlist <wireless interface> scan which will display all detected access-points to see if yours appears.

Is there a way to debug wireless access point issues that was setup with hostapd?

Solution 1:

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