Re: iwd access point mode

[Denis Kenzior <denkenz at gmail.com>]

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Hi Michael,

On 10/7/21 2:48 PM, Michael Nazzareno Trimarchi wrote:
> HI all
> 
> I'm playing with iwd. Looking at iwmon I can see virtual device
> discovered by iwd when they are created.
> 
> iw phy phy0 interface add wlan1 __ap
> 
> iwctl still report wlan0
> 

Right.  Since most people want to use iwd + hostapd for such tethering cases, we 
made the decision to simply ignore any new devices created outside iwd after a 
wiphy has been initialized.

You can get around this by creating the sta + ap devices first, then starting 
iwd.  You'll need to set UseDefaultInterface=true in /etc/iwd/main.conf.  See 
'man 5 iwd.config' for more details.

>   I was able to create wifi connection and access point mode using
> wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager. My idea
> is was experimenting iwd
> 
> iwctl device list still report only wlan1. The idea behind is to
> control ap+sta interface. Any feedback?
> 

Teaching iwd to create STA + AP interfaces when it initializes an adapter is on 
the TODO list.  We already do this with P2P, but not STA + AP.  This should be 
fairly easy to do, but we have been busy with other tasks.  Patches are always 
welcome!

Our (preliminary) thinking on this was to add a main.conf entry that tells iwd 
how it should manage wiphys by default.  Something like: "sta-only", "sta+p2p", 
"sta+ap".  Based on the configured setting, iwd would then create the interfaces 
automagically (assuming hardware/driver supports it,  falling back to "sta-only" 
if not).

Regards,
-Denis