[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#679770: hostapd: unknown configuration item 'ieee80211n' unknown configuration item 'ht_capab'

[Ben Schram]

Package: hostapd
Version: 1:1.0-3+b1
Followup-For: Bug #679770

Dear Maintainer,

I am also having problems with very similar results. 
I am also using a Sparklan WPEA-127N mini PCIe Wifi card. 

Had my configuration running as a daemon, wifi bridged over ethernet etc. 
802.11n was enabled with the ht_capab option enabled but had to upgrade in an effort to gain a higher 11n thoughrput performance. 

STEPS TAKEN: 

1) did a apt-get dist-upgrad from Squeeze to Wheezy. 
2) downloaded the backports-3.10.4-1.tar.gz from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/v3.10.4/backports-3.10.4-1.tar.gz
3) did a "make" defconfig ath9k, then make install 
3) rebooted machine, ensured that the ath9k drivers are indeed loaded, and functioning fine as a client using wpa_supplicant, authenticated, and connected fine to an already established WPA2-PSK AP nearby. 
4) Proceeded to load my old hostapd.conf and settings. 

upton running the "#/etc/init.d/hostapd start" I get the following error. 
	[....] Starting advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapdrmdir[ctrl_interface]: No such file or directory
 failed!

so running the actual daemon "# hostapd -dd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"
	random: Trying to read entropy from /dev/random
	Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
	ctrl_interface_group=0
	Line 374: unknown configuration item 'ieee80211n'
	Line 409: unknown configuration item 'ht_capab'
	2 errors found in configuration file '/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf'

Commenting out these two options (IE: disabling 802.11n) the daemon is then able to be started both by invoking the init.d script and the actual binary. 

I performed an "apt-get source hostapd" to confirm that the 802.11n options had indeed been enabled already under the wpa-1.0/debian/config/hostapd/linux config file. 

I even scrapped my hostapd.conf file and imported the provided example file found under /usr/share/doc/hostapd/examples/hostapd.conf and configred accordingly with identical results. 

I have a Sparklan WPEA-110N also which I will now go ahead and also test, along with a number of Intel Advance-N 6xxx series cards. 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.1
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages hostapd depends on:
ii  initscripts       2.88dsf-41
ii  libc6             2.13-38
ii  libnl-3-200       3.2.7-4
ii  libnl-genl-3-200  3.2.7-4
ii  libssl1.0.0       1.0.1e-2
ii  lsb-base          4.1+Debian8+deb7u1

hostapd recommends no packages.

hostapd suggests no packages.

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/default/hostapd changed:
DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

/etc/init.d/hostapd changed:
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON_SBIN=/usr/sbin/hostapd
DAEMON_DEFS=/etc/default/hostapd
DAEMON_CONF=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf 
NAME=hostapd
DESC="advanced IEEE 802.11 management"
PIDFILE=/var/run/hostapd.pid
[ -x "$DAEMON_SBIN" ] || exit 0
[ -s "$DAEMON_DEFS" ] && . /etc/default/hostapd
[ -n "$DAEMON_CONF" ] || exit 0
DAEMON_OPTS="-B -P $PIDFILE $DAEMON_OPTS $DAEMON_CONF"
.. /lib/lsb/init-functions
case "$1" in
  start)
	log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --start --oknodo --quiet --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN" \
		--pidfile "$PIDFILE" -- $DAEMON_OPTS >/dev/null
	log_end_msg "$?"
	;;
  stop)
	log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --quiet --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN" \
		--pidfile "$PIDFILE"
	log_end_msg "$?"
	;;
  reload)
  	log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
	start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN" \
		--pidfile "$PIDFILE"
	log_end_msg "$?"
	;;
  restart|force-reload)
  	$0 stop
	sleep 8
	$0 start
	;;
  status)
	status_of_proc "$DAEMON_SBIN" "$NAME"
	exit $?
	;;
  *)
	N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
	echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|reload|status}" >&2
	exit 1
	;;
esac
exit 0


-- no debconf information