The Netbook Hotspot

Steps for creating a hotspot from a netbook running Ubuntu 12.04. Incomplete. DanRasmussen has been wanting to do this for months, finally inched forward at most recent PTP PlayDay with thanks to KeeganQuinn and TedBrunner. Following these steps, you wind up broadcasting an SSID that nothing can connect to (because your hotspot does not yet have a DCHP server, and maybe something-something about DNS...)

What's Needed

  1. Computer
  2. Network connection (perhaps provided by a Android device's mobile hotspot, Clearwire USB, etc.)
  3. Interface to acquire network connection from
  4. Wireless interface to share network connection to
    1. Device must be capable of doing this. Many aren't. Do your research.
    2. If you just want to share your connection over ethernet, it's easier than this, and you're reading the wrong document.

Do This

  1. Install the package hostapd

  2. Configure hostapd ( /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf - change to your liking) : 

# /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
# 2012-07-13
# for more information, see https://personaltelco.net/wiki/NetbookHotspot

driver=nl80211

# interface below is the connection being shared, as reported by `ifconfig` in the console
interface=wlan1

# ssid is the publicly visible network name. Use "www.personaltelco.net" to advance the concept of network sharing!
ssid=www.personaltelco.net

hw_mode=g

# might want to change channel so it doesn't conflict with channels in your area
channel=9

# Don't know what any of the following does yet. Maybe unnecessary for an open hotspot?
auth_algs=1
wpa=0
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0

That's it for now!

To Do

  1. Research dnsmasq: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Dnsmasq

    • Note that the package "dnsmasq" interferes with Network Manager which can use "dnsmasq-base" to provide DHCP services when sharing an internet connection. Therefore, if you use network manager (fine in simple set-ups only), then install dnsmasq-base, but not dnsmasq. If you have a more complicated set-up, uninstall network manager, use dnsmasq, or similar software (bind9, dhcpd, etc), and configure things by hand.
  2. Get it working
  3. Find places and events at which to deploy.
  4. Fun!