[Feature Request]: Support for multiple hotspots, Level 3 "bridging"

[fvalasiad]

Which feature would you like to have?

Greetings.

So this is less of a feature request and more of a proposal awaiting approval so that I don't risk wasting my time
for something which will ultimately not be merged.

Multiple access points.

It's well known that multiple access points cannot be created by the script. hostapd is used for the access points, one can launch multiple hostapd instances, but the systemd service that comes with the package is limited to one instance(as one could argue it should), meaning that you cannot point it to a second config file.

The project itself relies on the systemd service, so how could this work?

Upon setting up an Access Point, copy the systemd service to create a new one.

Simple suggestion, say we wanna create an access point to wlan0?

TEMPLATE="/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/hostapd.service"
CONF="/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/hostapd-wlan0.service"
cp $TEMPLATE $CONF
sed -i s/hostapd.conf/hostapd-wlan0.conf/g" $CONF
sed -i s/hostapd.pid/hostapd-wlan0.pid/g" $CONF 

Level 3 "NAT" bridging.

Internet from ethernet and an access point using the wireless interface? All working great.

A repeater using two wireless interfaces? Not so much. Level 2 MAC bridges require hardware & driver support which most consumer wireless chips just do not have. The fallback is setting up a NAT to masquerade and forward packages from one interface to another. I haven't done my research to see what firewall configng sets up on demand, but this too could be supported, if there is demand for it.

Thanks for your attention and great work by the way!

Funding

• I am willing to cover expenses