You can use WDS which is supported by hostapd. But the speeds are not good. So you can try the solution that I am working on:
Verify if your wireless driver has mac80211 support here
Install hostapd from apt apt-get install hostapd
. Untill recently the apt binaries did not have support for mac80211. So for compiling it you can refer this
I did not get the hostapd conf file. So googled and got it. You can use mine from here. Place it as /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
. The changes you need to do are the following; eithet comment them out, or modify:
interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
bridge=br0
ssid=test
channel=1
With regard to ssid if you have the same one as your wireless routers and if your wireless router is in AP mode (just an entry door for the wireless devises to your wired network; and routing, firewalling, dhcp, dns is done by your wired router open to WAN), it would be bit more convenient.
The following code will make you pc an AP too (by creating a network bridge):
#!/bin/bash
service network-manager stop
ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 #remove IP from eth0
ifconfig eth0 up #ensure the interface is up
ifconfig wlan0 0.0.0.0 #remove IP from eth1
ifconfig wlan0 up #ensure the interface is up
brctl addbr br0 #create br0 node
hostapd -d /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf > /var/log/hostapd.log &
sleep 5
brctl addif br0 eth0 #add eth0 to bridge br0
brctl addif br0 wlan0 #add wlan0 to bridge br0
ifconfig br0 192.168.1.15 netmask 255.255.255.0 #ip for bridge
ifconfig br0 up #bring up interface
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 # gateway
Change interface names, ip, gateway according to your needs.
If you want to have security you can refer to the above mentioned link. You can try having WPA-PSK with a common shared key for all your AP's.
One thing you can do is block the protocols on your firewall. The primary protocol is SMB which uses a number of ports: 135, 137, 139, and 445. Mac computers may pick you up using avahi which runs on port 5353.
If you don't have any Samba component installed you don't need to block the SMB ports. These are the tools which handle the SMB protocol, and could make you appear a Windows.
A number of packages depend on avahi components, but unless you install and configure the avahi-daemon you shouldn't appear on anyone's Network list. Without the daemon you shouldn't be announcing your presence. However, if there is no DHCP server you may end up in zero-conf mode in the 169.254.0.0/16 network block. This might make you visible.
The normal network discovery tools on the peoples desktops only discover systems which announce their presence. I think Window is quieter now, but each system used to broadcast their presence and identify every few minutes.
EDIT: Most systems get their address from a DHCP server. This configures them so that they can communicate with larger networks. DHCP data will also provide the address of the router to use and additional information.
Some systems are given static IP address configurations. Servers are usually configured this way, but can get a static IP configuration from DHCP.
The address block 169.254.0.0/16 has been defined for self-configuring autonomous networks. Basically this allows computers to self-discover an address for themselves. The avahi protocol allows hosts to register their name in the .local
domain. This functionality is often referred to as zero-conf as no configuration is required. Windows (and Apple?) use this as a fall-back option if no other configuration works.
The avahi protocol can be used on any address range to announce available services. Apple calls this functionality Bonjour. Linux provides the avahi-daemon to announce and/or relay service lists.
EDIT2: I've done some further research with Windows, and haven't got it to show up in my Avahi browse list. (I don't have plans to run tests on an autonomous network.) This may be because I have DHCP running and Windows didn't fall back, or Windows may not register. Like WINS (Windows Internet Name Service), Zeroconf (avahi or Bonjour) maintains a list of servers and services which can easily be discovered and displayed by clients. Without add-on software Windows systems will not discover systems using Zeroconf.
DNS is not designed to provide the server/service discovery offered by either WINS or Zeroconf. Local networks may allow zone transfers from which some information may be discovered. Servers without zone discovery only provide name lookup services, but not the discovery services offered by WINS and Zeroconf. Additionally, DNS information is often statically defined, and may not include hosts configured by DHCP. DNS servers can be configured for dynamic updates which allows DHCP clients to register their names. Dynamic updates only provide name to IP address lookups. Apple systems do use this mechanism to discover servers and services. (From the documentation I have seen zeroconf is designed to provide discovery for more services than WINS.)
Another mechanism which can be used to discover systems is ARP. This only allows determining that a host is using an IP address, but not its name. ARP is not useful for a network neighborhood list. I do use arpwatch
to discover rouge systems connecting to a network. arpwatch can also discover some configuration problems.
Best Answer
You have to remove interfaces from the vbridge before it can be deleted. These commands should do it: