HOSTAPD(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual HOSTAPD(8)
NAME
hostapd - Host Access Point daemon
SYNOPSIS
hostapd [-dv] [-D macro=value] [-f file]
DESCRIPTION
hostapd is a daemon which allows communication between different 802.11
wireless access points running in Host AP mode.
hostapd implements the Inter Access Point Protocol (IAPP). Its purpose
is to exchange station association updates between access points in large
wireless networks. IAPP has been designed to speed up roaming between
different access points in the same Extended Service Set (ESS). IAPP is
described in the IEEE 802.11f standard.
hostapd additionally allows the monitoring and logging of station
associations on a non-hostap host which is receiving IAPP messages.
hostapd uses two network interfaces on startup specified in the
configuration file hostapd.conf(5). The first interface is used to
access the Host AP, which is a wireless interface running in Host AP
mode. Host AP mode can be enabled using ifconfig(8). The second
interface is used to communicate with other hostapd in the same broadcast
domain or multicast group. Usually a wired interface is used to
communicate with other hostapd.
hostapd broadcasts an ADD.notify IAPP message when a new station is
associated to the Host AP. When hostapd receives an ADD.notify message,
it tells the Host AP to remove the specified station.
hostapd may also handle dynamic roaming of IP addresses and routes in
addition to the standard IAPP ADD.notify behaviour. See the section
called IP Roaming in hostapd.conf(5) for details.
The options are as follows:
-D macro=value
Define macro to be set to value on the command line. Overrides
the definition of macro in the configuration file.
-d Do not daemonize and log to stderr.
-f file
Use file as the configuration file, instead of the default
/etc/hostapd.conf.
-v Produce more verbose output.
FILES
/etc/hostapd.conf default hostapd configuration file
SEE ALSO
hostapd.conf(5), ifconfig(8)
Inter Access Point Protocol, IEEE 802.11f, March 2001.
HISTORY
The hostapd program first appeared at the 21st Chaos Communication
Congress (https://events.ccc.de/congress/2004/) and later in OpenBSD 3.8.
AUTHORS
The hostapd program was written by Reyk Floeter <
[email protected]>.
CAVEATS
hostapd depends on drivers using the net80211 kernel wireless layer with
support of Host AP mode. For traditional reasons, the wi(4) driver still
uses its own Host AP code in if_wi_hostap(), which is not supported by
hostapd.
The IEEE 802.11 WLAN protocol lacks authentication of management frames
and is vulnerable to various denial of service and man-in-the-middle
attacks. That should be considered when implementing wireless networks
with hostapd.
FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 March 31, 2022 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8