Setting up a Raspberry Pi as a WiFi access point

Question

I followed this link for setting my Raspberry Pi as an Access Point:

http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-a-raspberry-pi-as-a-wifi-access-point/

Below are my configuration:

/etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.2
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.1.1

up iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.ip4.nat

/etc/dhcp/dhcp.conf

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.3 192.168.1.254;
option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
option routers 192.168.1.1;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
option domain-name "local";
option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4;
}

/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

interface=wlan0
ssid=RPi
channel=6
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=3
wpa_passphrase=myownkey
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
driver=nl80211
ieee80211n=1
hw_mode=g

ifconfig -a

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:27:eb:14:1d:81  
          inet addr:192.168.1.16  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:332 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:301 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:29981 (29.2 KiB)  TX bytes:38489 (37.5 KiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:27 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:27 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:9612 (9.3 KiB)  TX bytes:9612 (9.3 KiB)

mon.wlan0 Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 7C-DD-90-03-75-EE-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:130 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:14064 (13.7 KiB)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 7c:dd:90:03:75:ee  
          inet addr:192.168.1.2  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:353 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:278 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:35307 (34.4 KiB)  TX bytes:26632 (26.0 KiB)

I have WIFI dongle plugged into RPI USB port. When my RPI boots up I am able to access my newly created WIFI network "RPi" (as per config above). The client does gets assigned a new address - in my case it was 192.168.1.3. But I am neither able to ping other systems from my RPI or clients who join RPi WIFI network:

From RPI:

root@raspberrypi:~# ping 198.168.1.92
connect: Network is unreachable
root@raspberrypi:~# 

From 198.168.1.3:

# ping 198.168.1.92
From 192.168.2.3 ... Destination Host Unreachable

How can I correct the same? Also is it possible to assign clients a set of different network address say from range - 107.0.0.1 to 107.0.0.254?

Answer 1

Changing IP range for clients

If you want to change IP address range for clients you have to do the following:

1. Assign your RPi an address from the desired range. You can do this by changing address setting in /etc/network/interfaces. Let's say it's 107.0.0.2 in your case.
2. Change the range that DHCP server is giving to the clients in /etc/dhcp/dhcp.conf:
   • change subnet setting from 192.168.0.0 to appriopriate network address (in your case 107.0.0.0) and possibly a netmask
   • change range option to match your range (in your case it should be set to 107.0.0.3 107.0.0.254
   • change option broadcast-address, in your case to 107.0.0.255 (if your mask is 255.255.255.0
   • change option routers to match your configuration (your router address), in your case to 107.0.0.1

Reboot the RaspberryPi and everything should be working.