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There's plenty out there on setting up an ad-hoc network on your RPi, (Mine's an A, I believe.) but almost none on how to do it when you're using Raspbian Jessie. As such, I'm having a bit of trouble getting things working.

I've altered my /etc/network/interfaces to read

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
    wireless-channel 1
    wireless-essid PiNet
    wireless-mode ad-hoc

#allow-hotplug wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet manual
#    wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
    wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

To get a static IP, I altered my /etc/dhcpcd.conf by adding

interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.1.1/24

to the bottom of the file.

I also installed isc-dhcp-server and changed my /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server by adding wlan0 to INTERFACES=''

Finally, I changed my /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf by...

  • changing ddns-update-style none; to ddns-update-style interim;
  • uncommenting authoritative;
  • and adding subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.1.5 192.168.1.100 } to the bottom of the file.

It creates an open network PiNet, but my computer can't connect to it.

Is there anything obvious that I've missed?

CoilKid
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1 Answers1

1

After a bit of digging around, I found this. You can basically follow all the instructions, except ignore the bits about configuring network address translation and iptables. It won't create an ad-hoc network per se, but, if you're just trying to SSH into a RPi-based-device when you're in the middle of a field like I was, this should work well.

Generally:

  • install hostapd and dnsmasq on your RPi

  • change your /etc/network/interfaces file to read something like:

    auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 init static
 address 192.168.0.1
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 wireless-mode ad-hoc

#allow-hotplug wlan0
#iface wlan 0 inet manual
#    wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

  • open your dnsmasq config file (/etc/dnsmasq.conf) and uncomment #dhcp-range=192.168.0.50,192.168.0.150,12h

  • create a hostapd config file (sudo nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf) and enter something to the effect of

    interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid=PiNet
country_code=US
hw_mode=g
channel=6
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=Raspberry
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=CCMP
wpa_group_rekey=86400
ieee80211n=1
wme_enabled=1

(Obviously change the ssid and passphrase, and you might have to find the correct driver for your wifi adapter. The guide suggested that you can leave off the driver= line if you're using a RPi 3, I don't know if that's true.)

  • Make sure hostapd knows about the config file. Open /etc/default/hostapd and replace #DAEMON_CONF="" with DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf". Open /etc/init.d/hostapd and replace DAEMON_CONF= for DAEMON_CONF=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf.

  • Reboot your RPi, connect to it with your favourite device and SSH away!

CoilKid
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