wi-fi


How to Create a WiFi Hotspot in Ubuntu 22.04

Creating a WiFi hotspot on Ubuntu 22.04 is a straightforward process that can be very useful for sharing your internet connection with other devices. Turning your Ubuntu machine into a WiFi access point is a handy solution, whether at home or in a setting where a traditional WiFi network isn’t available. Here’s a detailed guide on configuring WiFi Access Points using the network-manager snap.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that you have the following:

  • A computer running Ubuntu 22.04.
  • A wireless network interface on your Ubuntu device.
  • The network-manager snap installed on your system.

Step-by-Step Guide to Create a WiFi Hotspot

Open the Terminal: First, open your terminal. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or searching for ‘Terminal’ in your applications menu.

Identify Your WiFi Interface: You need to know the name of your WiFi network interface. You can find this by running the command nmcli device status. Look for the device under the “DEVICE” column that has “wifi” listed in the “TYPE” column.

Configure the WiFi Hotspot: Use the following command to set up your WiFi hotspot:php

nmcli d wifi hotspot ifname <wifi_iface> ssid <ssid> password <password>;

Replace <wifi_iface> with your WiFi interface name, <ssid> with your desired network name (SSID) and <password> with your chosen password. Remember, the password should be between 8-63 characters or 64 hexadecimal characters.

For example, if your WiFi interface is wlan0, your desired SSID is MyHotspot, and your password is MyStrongPassword123, the command will look like this:

Connection Verification: If the command is successful, network-manager will create a connection named ‘Hotspot <N>’, where <N> is a number. This indicates your hotspot is active.

Shared Internet Connection: The created hotspot offers a shared connection by default. This means any device connected to your hotspot should be able to access the internet if your Ubuntu device has internet access.

Connecting Devices: Search for available WiFi networks on your other devices (like smartphones or laptops). You should see the SSID you set (MyHotspot in our example). Connect to it using the password you configured.

Tips and Considerations

  • Ensure your device has a stable internet connection if you intend to share it via the hotspot.
  • Keep your hotspot secure by using a strong, unique password.
  • Remember that using your computer as a hotspot may impact its battery life more quickly if not plugged in.

Conclusion

Creating a WiFi hotspot on Ubuntu 22.04 is a useful feature, especially when you need to share your internet connection quickly and efficiently. Following these simple steps, you can turn your Ubuntu machine into a reliable WiFi access point for various devices.

ncmli device wifi hotspot [ifname ifname] [con-name name] [ssid SSID] [band {a | bg}] [channel channel] [password password]
   Create a Wi-Fi hotspot. The command creates a hotspot connection profile according to Wi-Fi device capabilities and activates it on the device. The hotspot is secured with WPA if device/driver supports that, otherwise WEP is used. Use connection down or device down to stop the hotspot.

   Parameters of the hotspot can be influenced by the optional parameters:

   ifname
       what Wi-Fi device is used.

   con-name
       name of the created hotspot connection profile.

   ssid
       SSID of the hotspot.

   band
       Wi-Fi band to use.

   channel
       Wi-Fi channel to use.

   password
       password to use for the created hotspot. If not provided, nmcli will generate a password. The password is either WPA pre-shared key or WEP key.

       Note that --show-secrets global option can be used to print the hotspot password.
       It is useful especially when the password was generated.

Anonabox Pro – Disable Wi-Fi

The following video demonstrates how to disable the Wi-Fi on an  Anonabox Pro.

  1. Connect to the device via the LAN Ethernet port.
    It has a build DHCP server by default so you do not need to configure the IP.
    After you get connected, go to the default location of the device interface, which is http://192.168.19.84:1776/.
  2. After the interface loads, enter the root password and click on the Login button.
    (if you are using a brand new Anonabox or a box that was recently flashed then click on the Login button without entering a password (if you enter one, it will be ignored)).
  3. Then, go to the top menu Network and select the option Wireless
  4. At the new page, under the category Wireless Overview click on the Disable button.
  5. Finally, click on the OK button when you get the Really shut down network? confirmation box and wait for the changes to get applied, the image with the Wi-Fi logo will change to one that has a red stamp on it and right under the SSID field you will get the message Wireless is disabled or not associated.

To enable the WiFi, just repeat the steps above and click on the Enable button.


Qubes OS: Connect to Wi-Fi or Ethernet or another network 1

A couple of days ago we decided to give Qubes OS a go and see what it could do for a regular user. The installation was easy as it uses the same installer as Fedora, so we just created a live USB and formatted a laptop that had built in Wi-Fi.

To our surprise, we could not figure out how to change the network settings and activate an internet connection! Going to the NetworkManager (nm), even with root, would show us all fields as disabled when trying to create any new connection!

Some time passed before we realized that the NetworkManager of XFCE4 was not the way to go. After inspecting the Virtual Machines on the Qubes VM Manager, we saw that the sys-net VM was the only one that had in its hardware settings to access the Ethernet and Wi-Fi modules. So we got the hint, we needed to modify sys-net in order to connect the entire OS with its VMs to the network.

To modify the settings of the sys-net VM we needed access to the Settings Application, which was not available in the application menu. So the first thing we did, was to use the sys-net: Add more shortcuts... option under the group ServiceVM: sys-net to enable the Settings application shortcut.

In the [Dom0] Settings: sys-net window, we went to the Applications tab, on the left list we scrolled down to find the Settings option.

After selecting the Settings option, we clicked on the > button to move the Settings option to the right list.

Then we clicked on the OK button to apply the changes.

Going back to the application menu and the group ServiceVM: sys-net we could see the new option for sys-net: Settings.

Clicking on the sys-net: Settings showed us the usual settings manager for Gnome.

From there on, our job was easy, we just clicked on the Network option that gave us the window to modify all network settings. Then we selected the Wi-Fi network that we wanted to connect to, which worked without a hitch!

Finally, we had to test if the configuration was working as expected. From the application menu, under the group Domain: personal, we selected the option personal: Firefox to start the Firefox application on the personal VM.

Once Firefox started we could see that internet connection was active and everything was working as expected!


Login to ‘CytaVoda WiFi’ with no password using your SIM card 1

Using Android devices that carry Cytamobile-Vodafone SIM cards with active RED and BLACK plans, you can connect to the CytaVoda WiFi using SIM authentication instead of using a password.

To do so

  • from the Wi-Fi manager of your cell phone click to connect on the CytaVoda WiFi network
  • at the new window click on the drop-down named EAP method
  • and select the option SIM
  • finally click on the Connect button.

The system will validate you and no further steps needed.

You will notice that your Wi-Fi manager will show a slightly different window than the usual when you click to connect on the network. This is normal as the network offers multiple authentication methods and it is giving you the option to choose which one to use. Of course, we do not know the password and the purpose of this post is to demonstrate the SIM authentication method.

The CytaVoda WiFi has a drawback, it does not offer unlimited data to the users.
Depending on what your SIM plan is, you will have a different monthly data allowance which is renewed every 1st of the month.

The data allowance limits that were applied at the time this post was written, were the following:

  • 200MB for: RED 1
  • 500MB for: RED 2
  • 1GB (1024MB) for: RED 3
  • 2GB (2048MB) for: RED 4 / RED Family / RED Plus / BLACK

You can check the amount of CytaVoda WiFi data that you consumed and the remaining data at the page http://miu.cyta.com.cy.