I've been trying to follow this guide: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-wifi-extender/ to implement a wifi extender. For a USB wifi dongle, I just happened to have "OURLINK AC600" which contains the rtl8812au. I have installed this driver: https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux and now wlan1 comes up.
For my hostapd.conf settings, I used the settings from this site: https://github.com/igorpecovnik/hostapd/issues/1
interface=wlan1
ssid=WiFi_SSID
channel=5
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=Some_PassWord
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
driver=nl80211
ieee80211ac=1
hw_mode=g
The hostapd service is failing to initialize. When I run 'journalctl -xe' I get the following:
-- The unit hostapd.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 17 13:21:09 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start Advanced IEEE 802.11 AP and IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticator.
-- Subject: A start job for unit hostapd.service has failed
and when I run 'sudo cat /var/log/syslog | grep -a 'hostapd'' I get the following:
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi systemd[1]: hostapd.service: Service RestartSec=2s expired, scheduling restart.
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi systemd[1]: hostapd.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 44.
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi hostapd[2834]: Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi hostapd[2834]: Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi hostapd[2834]: nl80211: Could not configure driver mode
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi hostapd[2834]: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan1 disabled_11b_rates=0
Jun 17 13:21:41 raspberrypi hostapd[2834]: nl80211 driver initialization failed.
Another post (https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=235145) instructed to try and install an earlier version of hostapd, but the command shown to install the specific version no longer works:
apt-get install hostapd=2:2.4-1+deb9u2 -V
E: Version '2:2.4-1+deb9u2' for 'hostapd' was not found
How can I get this setup to work?