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I have already configured by Raspberry Pi to be a wireless access point using the tutorial here: http://www.daveconroy.com/turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-wifi-hotspot-with-edimax-nano-usb-ew-7811un-rtl8188cus-chipset/ I used the Edimax Nano USB EW-7811Un (RTL8188CUS chipset) just as the tutorial did. The tutorial worked fine, and the Raspberry Pi was generating a wifi network by bridging to its ethernet connection. However, I would really like to have the Raspberry Pi be a hotspot for 5 Ghz wifi.

So I purchased the TL-WDN3200 wifi dongle which supports dual band wifi. According to this - http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters - the TL-WDN3200 uses the RT5572 chipset, and there is a "native driver available in Kernel 3.10.36+ (rt2800usb)".

Using uname -a gives me Linux raspberrypi 3.12.22+ #691 PREEMPT Wed Jun 18 18:29:58 BST 2014 armv61 GNU/Linux so I assume that my Kernel version should have a native driver. Indeed, when I type lsmod there is a rt2800usb module listed. Furthermore, when I use lsusb the wifi dongle is recognized : Bus 001 Device 005: ID 148f:5572 Ralink Technology, Corp.

The only problem right now that stops the wifi dongle from working is that hostapd refuses to start up. Here is my hostapd.conf file:

interface=wlan0
driver=rtl871xdrv
bridge=br0
ssid=test
channel=1
wmm_enabled=0
wpa=1
wpa_passphrase=testtest
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP
auth_algs=1
macaddr_acl=0

The only thing I could think of is changing the driver to nl80211, but the driver is not recognized by hostapd. I even tried following the instructions to build hostapd from the online documentation but that didn't make hostapd recognize the nl80211 driver.

Is there anything I am missing here? If not, I was wondering whether anyone could recommend a 5Ghz wifi dongle that works out of the box for the Raspberry Pi? Thank you!

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  • I think there are packages or binaries you can download with latest drivers. You should search around for it.
    – Piotr Kula
    Jul 18, 2014 at 18:38
  • I have been searching around for quite a while - nothing online seems to work. I seriously think this is a hostapd issue because I tried configuring the /etc/network/interfaces file to connect to a local network on my router and that works fine - its only when I use hostapd to try to make a wireless hotspot that the dongle doesn't seem to work.
    – user3795482
    Jul 18, 2014 at 20:51
  • Ahhh. Are you sure it supports the hotspot feature. I forgot the technical term. Not all WiFi chips can change to be an AP. Maybe that's the problem.
    – Piotr Kula
    Jul 18, 2014 at 20:58
  • I'm not sure - do you know how I can check? I've been searching around but I haven't had much success - I did find this page though : wikidevi.com/wiki/Ralink_RT5572
    – user3795482
    Jul 18, 2014 at 21:14
  • 2
    Thanks for the help! I think I was using a different hostapd build since I was previously using the Edimax wireless dongle. I actually just tried a fresh install of Raspbian and hostapd and it worked!
    – user3795482
    Jul 19, 2014 at 0:32

1 Answer 1

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Problem Solved. I needed to do I fresh install of hostapd by first using sudo apt-get purge hostapd, then running which hostapd to see if I still had any remaining installations of hostapd - which I did. So after removing all hostapd installations, I just did a fresh install, configured it again with the nl80211 driver and everything worked out.

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3
  • 2
    Great news :) I think you should be able to mark your answer as accepted. Hope to hear from you soon, either question or answers are always welcome! Good Luck
    – Piotr Kula
    Jul 20, 2014 at 19:18
  • awesome. Did you use the same hostapd.conf? I got it to work at 5ghz but with a specific changing of the hostapd.conf hw_mode=a channel=40
    – Fight Fire With Fire
    Feb 23, 2016 at 17:40
  • I just worked through this problem with the Ralink 5572, and posted the results in this question <raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/42570/…>
    – tim11g
    Dec 31, 2016 at 17:59

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