Re: Wifi Hotspot configuration.

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sun, 2016-03-27 at 11:22 +0200, Thomas Haller wrote:
> On Sat, 2016-03-26 at 17:53 +0100, devops036 devops036 wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I recently installed a home server under CentOS 7.
> > I wanted to use it as a Wifi Hotspot.
> > I tried to activate this feature at the command line without
> > success.
> > I couldn't find a command, a script, any documentation locally or
> > on
> > the Internet to do that!
> >
> > The only solution was to install a graphical desktop that I didn't
> > need, execute the nm-connection-editor command and press the Wifi
> > Hotspot button.
> >
> > Is it normal?
>
> There are multiple client applications that all communicate via D-Bus
> with NetworkManager.
>
>
> On nm-1.2 there will be a command `nmcli device wifi hotspot` to
> create
> a wifi hotspot. However, there is no direct alternative on nm-
> 1.0/rhel-
> 7.2.
>
> Note that `nmcli device wifi hotspot` is just a convenience command.
> You can achieve the same outcome by modifying an existing connection
> to
> have all to settings for a wifi-hotspot. Something like
>
>   nmcli connection modify $CONNECTION \
>       802-11-wireless.mode ap \
>       ipv4.method shared \
>       #more settings...
>
>   or try:
>
>   nmcli connection edit $CONNECTION
>
>
> The problem is of course, *what* are the correct settings. See `man
> nm-
> settings` or type help/describe in edit mode.
>
>
>
> Note that all clients in the end create a text file with the
> connection
> settings. Either in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections or (on
> CentOS) /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*.
> You can edit the files directly. The manual pages are again nm-
> settings, nm-settings-ifcfg-rh and nm-settings-keyfile.
>
>
> Or, say you used nm-connection-editor on another host, look at the
> fields that it set: `nmcli connection show $CONNECTION`
>
>
> > Then, I tried to read the sources of the NetworkManager packages to
> > find out what was done behind the Wifi Hotspot button.
> Which Wifi Hotspot button do you mean?

Probably the GNOME Shell / gnome-control-center one...  but that's
really all it does.  It looks for a specific connection name that it
previously created and activates that, otherwise it creates a new
connection with the right properties and starts that instead.

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-control-center/tree/panels/network/net-device-wifi.c#n1004

Dan

> The nm-connection-editor sources are in the "network-manager-applet"
> package.
>
>
> > I didn't succeed.
> nmcli (on nm-1-2, not rhel-7.2) does:
> https://cgit.freedesktop.org/cgit/?url=NetworkManager/NetworkManager/
> tree/clients/cli/devices.c&id=bbc941245dac37083f0b46e115191c59bfbf95e
> b#n3073
>
>
> nm-connection-editor it's not in one place because there are just a 
> bunch of UI input fields that interact:
> https://git.gnome.org/browse/network-manager-applet/tree/src/connecti
> on-editor?id=027ca27169bb9425594b3c82d927c1ff861537e9
> basically, page-wifi.c, page-wifi-security.c and page-ip4.c work 
> together when you select the "Hotspot" mode.
>
>
>
> > Although I perfectly understand that documentation is something
> > difficult to put in place, in this case there is almost nothing.
> >
> > Would anybody be nice to point me to a documentation that I
> > wouldn't
> > have found or write some procedure to configure Wifi hotspot from
> > the
> > command line with some explanations about the steps?
>
> Thomas
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