WPA access point

Updated: April 19, 2023

WPA/WPA2/WPA3 support in the QNX Neutrino RTOS is provided by the hostapd daemon.

This daemon is the access point counterpart to the client-side wpa_supplicant daemon, because it manages your wireless network adapter when in access point mode. The hostapd configuration is defined in the /etc/hostapd.conf configuration file.

Here's a simple hostapd configuration file:

interface=abc0
ssid=my home lan
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
wpa=1
wpa_passphrase=myhomelanpass23456
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=CCMP

This configuration uses WPA-PSK for authentication, and AES for data encryption.

Note: The auth_algs and wpa fields are bitfields, not numeric values.

You can now start the hostapd utility, specifying the configuration file:

hostapd -B /etc/hostapd.conf

The ifconfig command should show that the network interface is active:

ifconfig abc0

abc0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2290
        ssid "my home lan" apbridge nwkey 2:"",0x49e2a9908872e76b3e5e0c32d09b0b52,0x00000000dc710408c04b32b07c9735b0,""
        powersave off
        bssid 00:15:e9:31:f2:5e chan 4
        address: 00:15:e9:31:f2:5e
        media: IEEE802.11 OFDM54 hostap (OFDM54 mode 11g hostap)
        status: active

Your WAP should now be available to your clients.