8192cu driver and custom hostapd (Edimax EW-7811Un & al.)

[macmpi]

Thanks for the detailed instructions here about special handling for devices using 8192cu driver.

However, the situation has evolved a bit recently on some popular platforms.
For instance on Pi, since kernel 4.4.13 in June 2016 (and this commit in particular), 8192cu enables cfg80211, and therefore must be used with standard hostapd version, rather than with custom one which will then fail.
This is confirmed here.

One way to determine if module driver is actually supporting cfg80211 (required by standard hostapd), is to do sudo modinfo <module_name> and check if depends: cfg80211 is present.
(Note, on Pi the referred change did not actually alter module driver version number: is still v4.0.2_9000.20130911)

I'm obviously not sure about the situation of 8192cu driver in other platforms kernel distributions and eventual necessity to use custom hostpad with those. But at least Pi situation is now simpler, and there is some method to determine whether standard hostpad should be used or not with that device.

Unsure you may want to add some note into the referred instructions and/or implement such kind of check.

[ulno]

I confirm this "problem". On newer kernels the rtl871xdrv detection is not necessary and actually doesn't even work - also not with a patched hostapd.

Using default nl80211 does work.

In my fork (https://github.com/ulno/create_ap) I added an if condition checking the kernel.

Also check this thread: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=152603