Use ubuntu 14.04.3 box as a wireless access point, no dhcp server and eth0 to wlan0 bridging

Question

I noticed that I had a 300Mbps N wireless adapter laying arround so I decided to use it in my ubuntu server to expand the range of my local nework, that server is being used as a samba and ftp server, it works great. My question is, is there any program that can create an access point without any dhcp server and bridge the eth0 interface to the wlan0 one so then my already existing dhcp server can handle all of the ip assignment? All of the tutorials or articles that I've read so far guide you trough the process of creating a separated subnet and that is not what I want.

in layman's terms is like connecting a router with another router trough the lan port and disabling the dhcp server on the one that is going to act as the access poing vs connecting the access point to the router trough the wan port.

UPDATE:

I've managed to get a wireless access point (using hostapd) working but I can't get the server to bridge eth0 to wlan0, I've seen some workarounds to this issue but all of them use a dhcp server in the middle, as I said, I want to use the dhcp server that I already have working on my network.

Answer 1

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to turn your Ubuntu server into an access point, but you want your actual access point to serve DHCP to clients.

You can do this using some software called hostapd. You'll find full details on how to set this up at the link at the bottom of this post, but I'll post a quick overview of the steps below too:

First up, install the required software on your server

# apt-get install hostapd
# apt-get install bridge-utils

Then configure hostapd

# vi /etc/default/hostapd

In the config file you'll need to setup your wireless interface wlan0 and a network bridge. You'll also need to configure it with the details you wish your server to use as a wireless access point.

Finally configure a network bridge in

# vi /etc/network/interfaces

The bridge will allow you to forward network packets from eth0 to rest of your LAN. This means that your access point's DHCP server should be able to see clients connected (via hostapd) to wlan0.

https://agentoss.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/creating-a-wireless-access-point-with-debian-linux/

Answer 2

I've found this tutorial that solves all of the problems that I had before

Thanks for your answers