How To Install hostapd on CentOS 8
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.