HOSTAPD(8)              OpenBSD System Manager's Manual             HOSTAPD(8)

NAME
     hostapd - Host Access Point daemon

SYNOPSIS
     hostapd [-dv] [-D macro=value] [-f file]

DESCRIPTION
     hostapd is a daemon which allows communication between different 802.11
     wireless access points running in Host AP mode.

     hostapd implements the Inter Access Point Protocol (IAPP).  Its purpose
     is to exchange station association updates between access points in large
     wireless networks.  IAPP has been designed to speed up roaming between
     different access points in the same Extended Service Set (ESS).  IAPP is
     described in the IEEE 802.11f standard.

     hostapd additionally allows the monitoring and logging of station associ-
     ations on a non-hostap host which is receiving IAPP messages.

     hostapd uses two network interfaces on startup specified in the configu-
     ration file hostapd.conf(5).  The first interface is used to access the
     Host AP, which is a wireless interface running in Host AP mode.  Host AP
     mode can be enabled using ifconfig(8).  The second interface is used to
     communicate with other hostapd in the same broadcast domain or multicast
     group.  Usually a wired interface is used to communicate with other
     hostapd.

     The hostapd will send an ADD.notify IAPP message if a new station has
     been associated successfully to the Host AP.  If the hostapd receives
     ADD.notify messages it will request the Host AP remove a station which
     has been associated to another access point.

     hostapd may also handle dynamic roaming of IP addresses and routes in ad-
     dition to the standard IAPP ADD.notify behaviour.  See the section called
     IP Roaming in hostapd.conf(5) for details.

     The options are as follows:

     -D macro=value
             Define macro to be set to value on the command line.  Overrides
             the definition of macro in the configuration file.

     -d      Do not daemonize and log to stderr.

     -f file
             Use file as the configuration file, instead of the default
             /etc/hostapd.conf.

     -v      Produce more verbose output.

FILES
     /etc/hostapd.conf     default hostapd configuration file

SEE ALSO
     hostapd.conf(5), ifconfig(8)

     Inter Access Point Protocol, IEEE 802.11f, March 2001.

HISTORY
     The hostapd program first appeared at the 21st Chaos Communication
     Congress (http://www.ccc.de/congress/2004/) and later in OpenBSD 3.8.

AUTHORS
     The hostapd program was written by Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>.

CAVEATS
     hostapd depends on drivers using the net80211 kernel wireless layer with
     support of Host AP mode.  For traditional reasons, the wi(4) driver still
     uses its own Host AP code in if_wi_hostap(), which is not supported by
     hostapd.

     The IEEE 802.11 WLAN protocol lacks authentication of management frames
     and is vulnerable to various Denial-of-Service and Man-in-the-Middle at-
     tacks.  That should be considered when implementing wireless networks
     with hostapd.

OpenBSD 4.7                    February 23, 2010                             2
