hostapd is a user space daemon for access point and authentication servers.
hostapd is a user space daemon for access point and authentication servers. It implements IEEE 802.11 access point management, IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticators, RADIUS client, EAP server, and RADIUS authentication server. The current version supports Linux (Host AP, madwifi, mac80211-based drivers) and FreeBSD (net80211).
hostapd is designed to be a daemon program that runs in the background and acts as the back-end component controlling authentication. hostapd supports separate front-end programs and an example text-based front-end, hostapd_cli, is included with hostapd.
hostapd works with the following drivers:
- mac80211 based drivers with support for master mode [linux]
- Host AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 [linux]
- Driver interface for FreeBSD net80211 layer [kfreebsd]
- Any wired Ethernet driver for wired IEEE 802.1X authentication
