LinuxDrivers | OrinocoDriver | HostAp
Official Homepage: http://hostap.epitest.fi/ Author: Jouni Malinen
Mailing List:: Official Mailing list, Gmane archives
Unofficial RPMS: NOT included in vanilla kernel, Redhat 8.0, 9.0
Changelog: Changelog TODO: http://hostap.epitest.fi/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/hostap/todo.lst
FEATURES
- WEP, WPA and WPA2 support, but not both simultanly http://sisyphus.iocaine.com/pipermail/hostap/2004-September/008112.htmlfeatures. It is configurable through prism_parm utility, but Host AP driver defaults to hardware-based decryption (and also encryption, if STA firmware is version 1.4.9 or newer), WEP performance in your host will depend on many factors, such as: Chipset Prism2/2.5/3, STA firmware , local CPU ...
Scanning Mode This feature allows the access point to be set in a scanning-only mode where it scans the RF environment for other access points and unassociated 802.11 clients. In this mode, the access point does not transmit beacons, respond to probe requests, or support client device association. This mode allows the access point to function as an intrusion detection device to detect rogue (unauthorized) access points and unassociated 802.11 clients
iwpriv wlan0 other_ap_policy 3
iwpriv wlan0 ap_scan 1
cat /proc/net/hostap/wlan0/ap
Manual scan and roaming see
Host based roaming
ACLs
Not destructive monitor mode
Fixed AP selection: iwconfig eth0 ap 00:60:1D:01:23:45
WDS support HostAP driver supports WDS without "implementing" WDS ports. There is some WDS operation problems with WEP Include automatic WDS setup for easy configuration
Basic IAPP (802.11f)support: http://sisyphus.iocaine.com/pipermail/hostap/2004-October/008206.html
hostapd supports RADIUS Accounting (RFC 2866). Accounting support in hostapd should work with and without 802.1x. An example command line for running without .1x and using local RADIUS accounting server: ./hostapd -o127.0.0.1 -A127.0.0.1 -E12345678 wlan0
FIRMWARE
Latest Firmware: http://www.red-bean.com/~proski/firmware/
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/
Automatic WDS creation requires firmware version 1.4.9 or newer
Hide ESSID: requires station firmware version 1.6.3 or newer
WPA functionaliy: requires station firmware version 1.7.0 or newer
KNOW BUGS/ISSUES
Invalid Wireless Event (0x8C03) - The kernel and the driver were compiled with different version of Wireless Extensions. You driver is compiled with v15, and the kernel with v14. -Jean
Output power cannot be changed via standard Manual Txpwr setting in Zcomax Cards December 2002
Poor performance under strange conditions due to ACK problems December 2002
Hostap and other Prism drivers have no way to know actually transmision power, TX power controlling is experimental hostap_ioctl.c Note! This TX power controlling is experimental and should not be used in production use. It just sets raw power register and does not use any kind of feedback information from the measured TX power (CR58). This is now commented out to make sure that it is not used by accident. TX power configuration will be enabled again after proper algorithm using feedback has been implemented.
TODO
Adding support for Hermes and Symbol chipset (Maybe 
Reporting received signal strength to remote side: not defined into standard: Technical details, November 2003 January 2003
Author has considered adding some kind of packet tagging to the driver code for 802.1x use December 2002
SNMP: Adding SNMP support for standard 802.11 MIB Dec 2002 - Initial Release (Sep 2003)
Write complete documentation for hostapd December 2002
hostapd
Is a user space alternative for handling IEEE 802.11 management functions (like authentication and association) that was originally performed in the kernel driver. The default configuration is still to use kernel driver for this; this does not require hostapd at all.
Nowadays, hostapd includes quite a bit more than only 802.11 authentication and association. It supports IEEE 802.1x authentication and authorization, RADIUS accounting, parts of IAPP, etc. In addition, most of the new higher level functionality will be added only to the user space daemon and using hostapd (i.e., define PRISM2_HOSTAPD for the driver) will eventually become the default option and I might even remove the option to cleanup the driver code (i.e., remove all the authentication and association related functionality from the kernel driver). (January 2003) However, hostapd is the future
Links
HostAP for Windows: AmbiCom has drivers for Prism 2 based cards that apparently support HostAP mode under Windows XP. (Thanks bcwireless.net!)
Jasons Articles: Installing and Configuring HostAP v0.1.1
Installing and Setting up basic HostAP box
WiFiAdmin is a PHP project for the administration of a wireless hotspot. New releases with numerous improvements are available that also implement a lot of community management features.
WeWiMo (Web Wifi Monitor) is a small script for monitoring computers connected to access point running Linux and hostap driver for Wifi cards.
