Interface (wlan) down after booting – have to restart hostapd service

Question

I configured my raspberrypi as a wifi repeater using hostapd and dnsmasq. I did not touch my /etc/network/interfaces, just added

interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.42.1/24

to /etc/dhcpcd.conf and

interface=wlan0
dhcp-range=192.168.42.20,192.168.42.100,255.255.255.0,12h

to /etc/dnsmasq.conf

I think I configured hostapd right (added DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf" to /etc/default/hostapd etc.) and it works.

But after a reboot my interface (managed by hostapd) is down. When I restart hostapd, everything works fine again, so I added

sleep 1 && service hostapd restart

to my /etc/rc.local as a workaround.

What could be the reason?

Is there a better way to fix it?

Starting an emulated service (service hostapd restart) in an emulated service (/etc/rc.local) is very confusing. I don't know what systemd really do with this double emulated things that does not exactly match old style SysV behavior: Compatibility with SysV. Maybe you can get it to run, good luck ;-). I prefer to use systemd directly. — Ingo, Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 8:54
@Ingo I can change that, but what I'm wondering about is why I have to restart hostapd. — jake, Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 12:49
Because you missed the entry nohook wpa_supplicant in hostapd.conf ;-) — Ingo, Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 14:32

oh.dae.su · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-14 13:17:34Z

2

Compared to the official guidelines you are missing

a) an entry to the file /etc/default/hostapd:

DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

b) an entry to the file dhcpcd.conf

nohook wpa_supplicant

answered Oct 14, 2018 at 4:36

oh.dae.su

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I'm not missing that entry. Just forgot to mention it, sorry. hostapd works fine, but only after restarting the service and I wonder why.
– jake
Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 12:41
1

Ok. Second try. You are also missing the line nohook wpa_supplicant in dhcpcd.conf.
– oh.dae.su
Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 12:54
That will maybe solve it. I was anyhow wondering why there is a wpa_supplicant for wlan0 (which is the ap device). But when I kill this one I cannot connect anymore. But I'll try this. Thanks!
– jake
Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 13:14
It's working now. Thank you! If you add that to your answer, I will accept it.
– jake
Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 13:20

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