How To Install hostapd on CentOS 8

hostapd is IEEE 802.11 AP, IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP/RADIUS Authenticator

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install hostapd on CentOS 8.

What is hostapd

hostapd is a user space daemon for access point and authentication servers. It implements IEEE 802.11 access point management, IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticators and RADIUS authentication server. hostapd is designed to be a “daemon” program that runs in the back-ground and acts as the backend component controlling authentication. hostapd supports separate frontend programs and an example text-based frontend, hostapd_cli, is included with hostapd.

We can use yum or dnf to install hostapd on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install hostapd.

Install hostapd on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install hostapd using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install hostapd

Install hostapd on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install hostapd using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install hostapd

How To Uninstall hostapd on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the hostapd package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove hostapd

hostapd Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/hostapd
/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
/etc/sysconfig/hostapd
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/be
/usr/lib/.build-id/be/94019356a1a031882e452838b617a769e661d0
/usr/lib/.build-id/ca
/usr/lib/.build-id/ca/cdf189c248d25cad41e92a43a1f06b45d0b217
/usr/lib/systemd/system/hostapd.service
/usr/sbin/hostapd
/usr/sbin/hostapd_cli
/usr/share/doc/hostapd
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/README
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/README-WPS.hostapd
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/README.hostapd
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.accept
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.deny
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.eap_user
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.radius_clients
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.vlan
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/hostapd.wpa_psk
/usr/share/doc/hostapd/wired.conf
/usr/share/licenses/hostapd
/usr/share/licenses/hostapd/COPYING
/usr/share/man/man1/hostapd_cli.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/hostapd.8.gz

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install hostapd on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.