Enable WPA Wireless access point in Ubuntu Linux

248 thoughts on “Enable WPA Wireless access point in Ubuntu Linux”

1. Thank you this worked great.

2. hi. this was a lifesaver. HOURS wasted on other stuff. question…. how can i configure my ip address to remain static? i use port forwarding, and cant have a new one every time i reboot or switch to wired.

3. If you want to configure static ip address in ubuntu you need to follow this procedure

   open /etc/network/interfaces file and enter your ip address details save the file and restart networking services

   sudo /etc/network/interfaces

   I am giving here an example once you edit the above file you need to enter the details in the following way

   auto eth0
   iface eth0 inet static
   address 192.168.3.90
   gateway 192.168.3.1
   netmask 255.255.255.0
   network 192.168.3.0

   In the above details you can replace address as your ip address,gateway,netmask and network address and save your file.

   Now you need to restart your networking services using the following command

   sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

   after restarting you can check your new ip address using the following command

   ifconfig

   hope this helps

4. I don’t see “WPA Personal” under the Wireless Security menu. I have tried many different guides, and followed them exactly. I was hoping this would be the last. Is there a specific reason I am not seeing “WPA Personal.”

5. You rock! Spent too much time searching and trying other solutions to get my wifi working. After finding this site was up in less than 3 mins! Thanks a million!

   My setup: Edgy Eft (6.10), Centrino (ipw3945)

6. @ David

   I’m in the same position. After a reboot, only ‘None’ and the WEP options are available.

   Setup: Edgy Eft, Netgear WG311v2 (TI ACX111)

7. Thanks for that. I’d been trying to get my a connection to my wireless router when using WPA-PSK for hours, but this worked straigt away.

8. Thank you!! This worked GREAT and got me connected in seconds with my sad old Linksys WPC54G PCI card. Tried a hundred other things, manual hacking of conf files, this got WPA going right away using DHCP, WPA-PSK to my router.

9. Oh yeah, full setup is: Edgy (6.10), Linksys WPC54G card, D-Link DI634M Router, all running in a Dell Latitude C610. And the card is also happily picking up a dozen other WAPs from my neighbors 🙂

10. This guide looks quite promising, although I have been having problems so far with network manager in that when I install it, clear down all but the first two lines in /etc/network/interfaces and reboot with my ralink 2400 pcmcia card in the slot, the power light on the card comes on, but when I click on network manager, all i get is a message saying that “no network devices have been found” Any ideas?

11. Steeley: This is because your open-source driver (acx100) doesn’t support WPA. Not yet anyway. NetworkManager sees this driver and disables any options that aren’t supported; pretty nifty. To use WPA with this card, unfortunately, you’ll have to use a windows driver and ndiswrapper.

12. I am a total newbie w/ Linux, but your instructions got me up and running. Thank you so much. If you do would like some feedback, I would recomened putting in how to create the etc/default/wpasupplicant file. It took me a while to figure out (based on my permisions, but I finally got it.

    THANKS,
    Matt

13. I followed your instruction, however I still couldn’t get WPA to work. I was able to get my laptop to talk to the router with no security or WEP. However I’ve had no luck with WPA. Seems like everyone else who have posted have had success. What else could I try?

14. Wait, just to make sure. In the wpasupplicant file, I only need to have:

    ENABLED=0

    Is that correct?

15. yes only that line should be there

16. That’s what I had. But WPA is not working. What else can I try? To give you more info, I have Atheros 5212 based chip for my wireless card.

17. Can I change MTU size if using networkmanager?

    With everything commented out in /etc/network/interfaces, is there any way to change MTU for the wireless interface? It seems to have defaulted to 1500 (looking at it with ifconfig).

18. Hi – thanks for the comprehensive instructions. Unfortunately, I’m a real newbie, and can’t even get NetworkManager to run 🙁 . I’ve tried installing it through apt-get AND Synaptic. It says the current version is already loaded, but a simple nm-applet gets no response from the screen, no icon. Am I doing something stupid here? (Sony Vaio PCG-18XG, 256, 16GB, ubuntu 6.10, DWL-G630 working on home wlan). I’d really appreciate your help. Thanks again.

19. Do any of you guys know how to setup wireless for Fedora?

    I have a wireless card and it reads it cause it shows it in the Network Configuration Hardware tab as a Configure status, but when i go to add new wireless device, is not listed.

    any reason for this?
    i’m a newbie as well.

20. This article is amazing. When NetworkManager says “Create New Wireless Network”, is it referring to a creating an access point? If so, does anyone have any more info on creating an access point utilizing current Wireless card. Thanks

21. Nice! Wanted to use WPA Personal since Breezy.. 😀
    I’ve got another question. I’ve tried to connect to some of my friends pc’s (when we come together for an evening or so to share files etc..) but their using Adhoc (since no one has and Access Point) and Linux (Ubuntu and Kubuntu) doesn’t seem to want to connect to an Adhoc network (or PC) .. Btw, I’m using Edgy Eft.

22. I have a Netgear WG511. It uses the native prism54 driver. So far unencrypted wireless and WEP seem to work, but WPA does not see to be supported as it’s not an option in the network manager. Should I use the ndiswrapper with Netgear’s drivers?

23. @brent

    If you want to create a wireless access point you need configure in your router then you can access from your laptop or anyother place.If you have braded wireless router check their documentation how to create wireless access point

24. @Adam

    yes you need to use ndiswrapper with Netgear’s drivers

25. Thank you, searched for this a long time!!
    Will try it this weekend. 🙂

26. Why do I comment out everything except “lo” interfaces? I still want my ethernet to work, and I’m not sure that this won’t make it not load, so why? 😛

27. so many thanks to clear this out

28. I did not do it your way, I added a wpa_supplicant.conf file and put the relevant network information in that file. And I still have issues connecting to wpa hidden AP’s. I also have to delete .gconf/system/networking/wireless/networks/APNAME then try and connect which sometimes works. adding ap_scan=2 sometimes helps as well.

    Any thoughts?

29. Would this also work with KDE (using Knetworkmanager)?

30. I can’t get wpasupplicant to install. I get the error: “Depends: libdbus-1-2 (>= 0.62) but 0.60-6ubuntu8 is to be installed” 🙁 Any ideas?

31. Hi!!
    Great you are a genius!! I just followed your instructions and it worked instantly.

    Cheers

32. Hello,

    Fantastic! After days of struggling with this issue on my Acer Travelmate 2312LMI with an Atheros Wi-Fi card, you’re sollution made it work pico bello, including WAP and AES on my Linksys WRT54GS router. I’m glad I didn’t have to start using ndiswrapper and some W$ driver.

    Thank you very very much.

    PS: To Roy: Yes, I use this solution on Kubuntu with KDE and KNetworkmanager!

33. Whoops. My PS was of course ment for Rob.

34. Hi, I tried this a few weeks ago and it worked perfectly when I was at my apt, but since I changed locations I tried to set up a different ssid, however, even if I put in the correct ssid and key (or select the ssid from the list), it won’t connect. It’ll go through the animation for a few seconds, then it sometimes shows the signal bars, and then reverts to no connection. Any ideas?

35. I figured out what the problem was. wpasupplicant had been updated to the trevino/3v1n0 version which caused it to break.

36. Okkkkk, I have some questions to make. First of all I can’t install the network-manager-gnome. It says that it couldn’t locate or something like that. I tried with the ubuntu CD but still the same problem. What’s wrong with that? And the newbie-questions: how do I comment out these lines? By placing # in the beggining? And in the end I leave only a few lines uncommented(as far as I remember)? How do I create a file? With sudo touch? I have the 6.06 ubuntu and a WGT511T Netgear wireless card(it’s on a HP Compaq nc6320 laptop). It’s been one week that I’m trying lots of things and nothing works. I don’t know much from linux, the how to for wpa on ubuntu help is complicated and so I need help. Please answer if you can. Thanks in advance

37. This worked great! Much better than the other guides! Thanks!!! BTW Edgy Eft System

38. I followed the instructions exactly. I am able to detect networks now but I can’t connect with any of them. I can input the key but nothing happens. It keeps prompting me for the network key after a few seconds of trying to connect. I am running a HP Pavilion dv5000 laptop with Broadcom wireless card and Edgy Eft. What am I missing?

39. It worked for me as well, Ubuntu6.10/T60. The wireless connection is establishing but I cannot browse anysite.

40. Is ist not necessary to create a /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file and fill it with network=… info?

41. I really want to use WPA, simply because it provides better security than WEP. However, as I read from Mutt that the open source driver acx100 does not support WPA. Does anyone know if there is any ongoing work to fix/enhance this driver to support WPA. If so, more details would be appreciated.

42. To Rob with the KDE question. It works perfectly with knetworkmanager. Simply change the “gedit” command to “kwrite”. It worked perfectly for me. I had been using wlassistant, and it could only connect via WEP. I am soooo happy with this method. I have been wanting to migrate over to Linux permanently for awhile, and the problems with wireless have held me back. NO MORE!!!!

43. Yannis, you have to make sure you have the proper repositories enabled.

44. I also use Edgy with Centrino (ipw3945), my card is a Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG (Broadcom) on an HP nx9420 laptop, getting Wifi to work was a piece of cake with this setup, but getting WPA to work is not happening and let me tell you I have tried EVERYTHING! including this, in-fact I spent nearly a whole week on it. I need to configure PSK-AES encryption (if anyone can help), there must be a way… Intel lists AES as supported by the card, and on the same spec laptop on XP it took about a minute to configure.

45. Thanks appreciated worked flawlessly with edgy eft and a linksys wmp55ag pci adapter 🙂

46. Dude, you are the mother-grabbin’ MAN!! I worked all day long trying get this thing going with all of the tutorials from the ubuntu forums to no avail. When I read this, I was skeptical at first (because I’d tried for so long already) but I figured I’d give it a shot. Worked perfectly!! Dell Inspiron 8500, WPC54G v1.2 Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. Please make this available on the Ubuntu Forums if it isn’t already. Thanks.

47. Brother, is it possible to make this persistent after a reboot? If so, how?

48. Hi!
    Finally a guide that works, and it works great. Thank You very much.
    p.s. You should include the thing on the static ip in the guide too.

49. i’m having troubles with network-manager-gnome. “sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager” returns Couldn’t find package network-manager-gnome. PLEASE HELP!!

50. Bonzer burger, An excellent guide to an excellent little application.