WEP access point

Updated: April 19, 2023

Enabling WEP network authentication and data encryption is similar to configuring a wireless client, because both the WAP and client require the same configuration parameters.

Alert: If you're creating a new wireless network, we recommend you use WPA, WPA2 (RSN), or WPA3 (if you have the right drivers) rather than WEP, because these protocols provide better security. You should use WEP only if there are devices on your network that don't support WPA, WPA2, or WPA3.

To use your network adapter as a WAP, you must first put the network adapter in host access point mode:

ifconfig abc0 mediaopt hostap

You will also likely need to adjust the media type (link speed) for your wireless adapter as the auto-selected default may not be suitable. You can view all the available media types with the ifconfig -m command. They will be listed in the supported combinations of media type and media options. For example, if the combination of:

media OFDM54 mode 11g mediaopt hostap

is listed, you could use the command:

ifconfig abc0 media OFDM54 mediaopt hostap

to set the wireless adapter to use 54 Mbit/s.

The next parameter to specify is the network name or SSID. This can be up to 32 characters long:

ifconfig abc0 ssid "my lan"

The final configuration parameter is the WEP key. The WEP key must be either 40 bits or 104 bits long. You can either enter 5 or 13 characters for the key, or a 10- to 26-digit hexadecimal value. For example:

ifconfig abc0 nwkey corpseckey456

You must also mark your network interface as “up” to activate it:

ifconfig abc0 up

You can also combine all of these commands:

ifconfig abc0 ssid "my lan" nwkey corpseckey456 mediaopt hostap up

Your network should now be marked as up:

ifconfig abc0

abc0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST, RUNNING, PROMISC, SIMPLEX, MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ssid "my lan" apbridge nwkey corpseckey456
    powersave off
    bssid 11:22:33:44:55:66 chan 2
    address: 11:22:33:44:55:66
    media: IEEE802.11 autoselect hostap (autoselect mode 11b hostap)
    status: active