# Turning a PC into an Access Point



## balanga (Dec 14, 2021)

Does anyone know of a guide for turning a PC into an Access Point?

I have a Lenovo ThinkCentre M92 which includes an Intel wireless card. Is there any way to tell whether I ought to be able to configure it as an AccessPoint?


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## covacat (Dec 14, 2021)

Chapter 33. Advanced Networking
					

Advanced networking in FreeBSD:  basics of gateways and routes, CARP, how to configure multiple VLANs on FreeBSD, etc




					docs.freebsd.org


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## balanga (Dec 14, 2021)

Is there some restriction on hostapd working with certain wireless cards?

My PC has an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230


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## D-FENS (Dec 14, 2021)

As long as your card is recognized by the driver, it should work. Concrete support information is available here: https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Iwlwifi


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## balanga (Dec 14, 2021)

I read somewhere that the driver of the Centrino Wireless-N 2230 does not support hostapd.

I don't see a definitive answer to that in the article provided.


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## hardworkingnewbie (Dec 15, 2021)

In general stock hardware sucks as access point, because the antennas are not very good compared to dedicated hardware access points. Keep that on mind if you want to cover more than one room.


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## Phishfry (Dec 15, 2021)

balanga said:


> I read somewhere that the driver of the Centrino Wireless-N 2230 does not support hostapd.


That is true. None of the Intel cards can do hostapd.

I run NanoBSD Atheros WAP and I couldn't be happier. I use a Mikrotek mini-pcie module on APU2.

One day I may virtualize it.


```
wlan0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    ether 4c:5e:0c:11:65:38
    groups: wlan
    ssid apu2ap channel 149 (5745 MHz 11a ht/40+) bssid 4c:5e:0c:11:65:38
    regdomain FCC country US ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy MIXED
    deftxkey 2 TKIP 2:128-bit TKIP 3:128-bit txpower 23 mcastrate 6
    mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60 ampdulimit 64k ampdudensity 8 shortgi wme
    burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs
    media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11na <hostap>
    status: running
```

No load at all

```
CPU:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.0% system,  0.0% interrupt,  100% idle
Mem: 3512K Active, 10M Inact, 117M Wired, 17M Buf, 1720M Free
Swap:

  PID USERNAME    THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
 1757 root          1  20    0    13M  2596K CPU3     3   0:00   0.08% top
 1751 root          1  20    0    20M  6480K select   2   0:00   0.01% sshd
  875 root          1  20    0    17M  4820K select   2   0:45   0.00% hostapd
  691 root          1  20    0    11M  1824K select   3   0:16   0.00% syslogd
  619 root          1  20    0    10M  1036K select   3   0:03   0.00% devd
  419 _dhcp         1  20    0    11M  2024K select   1   0:00   0.00% dhclient
  365 root          1  49    0    11M  1988K select   3   0:00   0.00% dhclient
  362 root          1  20    0    11M  1776K select   1   0:00   0.00% dhclient
 1754 root          1  24    0    13M  2888K pause    3   0:00   0.00% csh
  847 root          1  20    0    19M  5600K select   1   0:00   0.00% sshd
  898 root          1  52    0    11M  1688K ttyin    2   0:00   0.00% getty
```


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