How To Install hostapd on Rocky Linux 8

In this tutorial we learn how to install hostapd on Rocky Linux 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 Rocky Linux 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 Rocky Linux 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install hostapd.

Install hostapd on Rocky Linux 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

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

sudo dnf -y install hostapd

Install hostapd on Rocky Linux 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

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 Rocky Linux 8

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

sudo dnf remove hostapd

hostapd Package Contents on Rocky Linux 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 Rocky Linux 8 using yum and dnf.