- Create WiFi hotspot on ubuntu
- 8 Answers 8
- Creating wifi-hotspot using Unity’s default network manager without downloading any tool/software.
- How to Create a WiFi Hotspot for Sharing a Wireless Internet Connection in Linux
- Some features
- Installation
- Install linux-wifi-hotspot on Ubuntu using PPA
- Install linux-wifi-hotspot using .deb file
- Install linux-wifi-hotspot using the source file
- Create a WiFi Hotspot on Linux
- Create WiFi Hotspot using GUI
- Create WiFi Hotspot using terminal
- Wrap up
- How to Create a Wi-Fi Hotspot on Ubuntu
- Creating a Wireless Hotspot in Ubuntu
- Wrapping Up
Create WiFi hotspot on ubuntu
Although many questions have already been asked regarding WiFi hotspot, I didn’t get any of the solutions working for me. I connect to the Internet using a 3G Dongle of Huawei 3772 (Vodafone). The connection type is Mobile Broadband connection. I have to share this Internet connection with my other devices like mobile phones and laptops. How can I create a WiFi hotspot connection for this connection. I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I would like to note that I have already tried some help links from Ubuntu but, they are so confusing that I could not understand them.
8 Answers 8
Creating wifi-hotspot using Unity’s default network manager without downloading any tool/software.
The method described in this answer only works if your wireless device supports master mode. To check whether it does, open a console and type
sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode master
Replace wlan0 with whatever Ubuntu calls your wireless device.
If you get an error, your device does not support master mode and this solution unfortunately does not work. Source: Community Help Wiki, this comment.
- Disable WIFI and plug in an internet cable or mobile-broadband modem to your Ubuntu so that your Ubuntu is connected to wired or broadband connection and wireless is disabled.
- Go to Network Icon on the top panel → Edit Connections, then click the Add button in the pop up windows.
- Choose Wi-Fi from the drop-down menu when you’re asked to choose a connection type:
- In the next window, do:
- Type in a connection name. The name will be used later.
- Type in a SSID
- Select mode: Infrastructure
- Device MAC address: select your wireless card from drop-down menu.
When done, click the save button.
After above steps, a configuration file created under /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections directory. File name is same to the connection name you typed in step 4.
Now press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and hit Enter to edit the configuration file.
gksudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/wifi-hotspot
Replace wifi-hotspot with the connection name you types in step 4.
When the file opens, search for the line mode=infrastructure and change it to mode=ap .
When everything’s done, enable WIFI from Network Manager icon on the panel. It should automatically connect to the hotspot you created. If not, select «Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi Network» and select it from the drop-down box.
Now you can search and connect the access point from your Android mobile . enyou
How to Create a WiFi Hotspot for Sharing a Wireless Internet Connection in Linux
There might be a situation where you want to create a hotspot from your network card and use it with other devices like your laptop, mobile phone, tablet, etc., but it is not convenient at all to create a hotspot on the Linux platform.
because you have to make the changes yourself, which takes some skill and time and can be confusing for a new user. As a result, I’m here to show you how to easily create a WiFi hotspot in just a few simple steps using the linux-wifi-hotspot tool.
All you need to do is install the linux-wifi-hotspot tool, run it in your terminal, or use the graphic interface to enter the details like a hotspot name, password, and security key, and that’s all you need to do in order to create the hotspot.
Some features
I won’t be able to tell you the features of this tool once you start the installation step, so now it’s time to familiarize yourself with the features of this tool.
- linux-wifi-hotspot has both CLI and GUI support
- Create a wifi access point from any network interface
- You can share wifi connection via QR code
- Information connected devices
- Support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz
- Choose between IEEE 80211n, IEEE 80211ac modes
- Modify things like wifi channel, mac address, and etc
There is one thing I like to tell you before heading ahead like some WiFi adapters do not support Access Point (AP), which is necessary to create a hotspot, so you may not be able to use it, especially if your device is equipped with a Realtek NIC.
Installation
If you use Ubuntu/Debian-based distributions like Linux Mint, Pop! OS, and others, you can add a PPA for linux-wifi-hotspot, or you can download the.deb binary file from the release section and install it manually.
For other Linux based distros, you can install it from the source file, so don’t worry about it.
Install linux-wifi-hotspot on Ubuntu using PPA
To install linux-wifi-hotspot on Ubuntu based distributions, open the Terminal and run the following command to add the PPA for linux-wifi-hotspot:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lakinduakash/lwh
After that, you need to update your repository to fetch the linux-wifi-hotspot package by running the following command, which will first update the repository, and then the next command will install the linux-wifi-hotspot:
$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install linux-wifi-hotspot
Once the installation is done, you can start configuring the linux-wifi-hotspot on your machine by looking for wihotspot in the Application menu.
Install linux-wifi-hotspot using .deb file
If you’re using a Debian-based distribution or don’t want to install a PPA, you can use this method, in which I’ll show you how to download and install a.deb binary file on your system.
So let’s begin by downloading the deb binary file of linux-wifi-hotspot from the release section of the project. From there, you can fetch the latest version of this application, or else you can use the below command to download the .deb binary file directly from the terminal.
$ wget https://github.com/lakinduakash/linux-wifi-hotspot/releases/download/v4.4.0/linux-wifi-hotspot_4.4.0_amd64.deb
Once you’ve downloaded the .deb file, run another command to install the.deb binary file.
$ sudo apt install ./linux-wifi-hotspot_4.4.0_amd64.deb
Install linux-wifi-hotspot using the source file
Alternatively, you can also install linux-wifi-hotspot from the source file, for which you need to fulfill a few dependencies such as make gcc and g++, build-essential, pkg-config, gtk, libgtk-3-dev, libqrencode-dev (for qr code generation), and libpng-dev (for qr code generation).
For instance, if you want to install linux-wifi-hotspot on RHEL-based distributions like Fedora/CentOS/Rocky Linux/Oracle Linux, then you can run the below command to fulfill dependencies.
$ sudo dnf install -y gtk3-devel gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel pkg-config make hostapd qrencode-devel libpng-devel
After that, execute the following set of commands to start the installation.
$ git clone https://github.com/lakinduakash/linux-wifi-hotspot $ cd linux-wifi-hotspot $ make $ sudo make install
Once you complete the above step, move on to the next section, where I’ll show you how to use linux-wifi-hotspot to create a hotspot with your network card.
Create a WiFi Hotspot on Linux
You can create a hotspot using the command line and its GUI tool by using the linux-wifi-hotspot tool, which allows you to easily set up your own wireless hotspot in just a few steps.
Create WiFi Hotspot using GUI
The linux-wifi-hotspot tool provides a graphical user interface that makes the process of setting up a wireless hotspot easier with just a few simple clicks.
To get started, you must first go to the Applications menu and search for “wihotspot” or “Wi-Fi hotspot.”
After you have found the application, click on it to launch the programme, and once you have opened the application, you will find a similar kind of interface on your end.
On the main interface of the application, you will find various options, such as SSID, the Password check box to enable WPA2 encryption, which you can use to protect the hotspot, the WiFi interface to select the network card on which to activate the hotspot, and the Internet interface drop down menu to use the internet connection from the specific nic.
So let me show you how it will look once you make some basic changes to it.
If you want, you can further customise by selecting the “Advanced” menu, which will bring up a list of options such as changing the frequency band, hiding the SSID, setting a custom Mac, and many more.
After that, I’ll click on “Create hotspot” to start the hotspot from the active wifi interface, and once it activates, the “Open QR” and “Stop” buttons will be enabled for you to use.
But when I clicked “Create hostpot,” I found that my Realtek card wasn’t compatible with this feature. So I used another network card to make the hotspot.
If you want to check how many devices are connected to your hotspot, you can click on “Connected devices” to get information about each connected device.
Create WiFi Hotspot using terminal
On the other hand, you can use the create_ap command to create a hotspot, which is actually a fork of oblique/create_ap that is designed to easily create a wireless access point from the command line.
So let’s see how you can use create_ap to create a wireless hotspot on your Linux machine.
// Create open hotspot $ sudo create_ap wlan0 eth0 MyAccessPoint // Create hostpot with WPA + WPA2 passphrase: $ sudo create_ap wlan0 eth0 MyAccessPoint MyPassPhrase // Create hostpot using the same WiFI interface $ create_ap wlan0 wlan0 MyAccessPoint MyPassPhrase // Create hotspot using different wireless card $ sudo create_ap --driver rtl871xdrv wlan0 eth0 MyAccessPoint MyPassPhrase
Once you execute any command from the above, it will start running in the foreground, so you cannot use the current terminal for other tasks.
To avoid this, you can use the —daemon option, which will run the process in the background.
$ sudo create_ap --daemon wlan0 wlan0 MyAccessPoint MyPassPhrase
It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?
Wrap up
That’s all for this article, where you learned how to create a wifi hotspot for sharing a wireless internet connection in Linux. If you are having trouble with a Realtek WiFi adapter, you can get help from this guide.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below. Until then, put your feet up and relax. As always, the next article will be up shortly.
A man with a tech effusive who has explored some of the amazing technology stuff and is exploring more. While moving towards, I had a chance to work on Android development, Linux, AWS, and DevOps with several open-source tools.
How to Create a Wi-Fi Hotspot on Ubuntu
Well, before able to share your internet connection with other people (though more commonly, other devices) is a basic feature that most operating systems (desktop and mobile) offer. Ubuntu is no different.
The most common use case for this is sharing a wired internet connection from a PC or laptop as a wireless connection that other devices (e.g., mobiles, tablets, etc) can connect to wirelessly.
You need to have some kind of wireless networking equipment present on the device whose internet connection you plan to share (as this is what’s used to create a hotspot – it can’t happen out of thin air, sadly) as well as, obviously, an active connection to share.
Other than that, the process is straightforward regardless of which Ubuntu version you’re on
Creating a Wireless Hotspot in Ubuntu
To create an access point in Ubuntu make sure you have a wired connection, or a data connection that is not using the same wi-fi card/dongle you plan to create your hotspot with.
- Open Settings >Wi-Fi
- In the overflow menu select “Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot…”
- In the modal that appears enter a network name and password
- Click Turn On
That’s basically it; you can open the system menu (or Quick Settings in 22.10+) to check the status. You should see “Wi-fi hotspot active” staring back at you.
You can connect to your newly minted wifi hotspot from other devices. The stop on how to do that vary based on OS but generally you go to the wi-fi settings panel, tap the name of your new hotspot, enter the password, join, start pillaging memes/download cat gifs/trolling me on Mastodon/etc.
Wrapping Up
The steps above work in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and above. Similarly, since Ubuntu is a GNOME-based distro, these steps will work in other GNOME-based distros such as Fedora, Zorin OS, etc.
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