Arch Linux

aarcane

Member

From: Antelope, CA

Registered: 2006-10-12

Posts: 10

Website

nl80211 issues/missing

I just installed hostapd, and I've been testing with madwifi, but when  I tried to switch back to ath5k I get the oddest error:

Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Line 19: invalid/unknown driver 'nl80211'
1 errors found in configuration file '/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf'

nl80211 is supposed to be the default driver, right?  why isn't it known?  what package do I have to install or module do I have to modprobe to enable it ?

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: nl80211 issues/missing

I'm not familiar with hostapd, but nl80211 is a header, not a driver. If you post your hostapd.conf, someone might get an idea.

aarcane

Member

From: Antelope, CA

Registered: 2006-10-12

Posts: 10

Website

Re: nl80211 issues/missing

http://pastebin.ca/1575315 is my conf, and this is what happens when I run it:

[aarcane@bitch ~]$ hostapd -dd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Line 19: invalid/unknown driver 'nl80211'
1 errors found in configuration file '/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf'
[aarcane@bitch ~]$

it works fine using the madwifi driver, but it's too unstable to use.   I'm using kernel26, madwifi, ath5k, hostapd, and everything else from the official repos, and ran pacman -Syu on sunday.

Last edited by aarcane (2009-09-22 15:40:00)

marcincygan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 1

Re: nl80211 issues/missing

nl80211 is supposed to be the default driver, right?  why isn't it known?  what package do I have to install or module do I have to modprobe to enable it ?

if I understand your problem, you need to install hostapd with nl80211 support - not from arch - but from there
make some changes and compile - everything is explained there..

I installed it in that way, but now i don't know how to run hostapd at boot time.. maybe previously installed hostapd from arch makes it impossible? now i have to run from place where hostapd was compiled..

Last edited by marcincygan (2009-10-27 09:41:34)

Neuro

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2005-10-12

Posts: 352

Re: nl80211 issues/missing

It's actualyl a matter of recompiling the hostapd package:

abs community/hostapd
cd /var/abs/community/hostapd

You can bzcat config.bz2 to see that nL80211 support isn't there.

Just add this:

CONFIG_DRIVER_NL80211=y

and rebuild the package. That should do the trick.