Turn Your Ubuntu Laptop into a Wireless Access Point

If you have a single wired Internet connection like in a hotel room — you can create Wireless Access Point with Ubuntu and share the Internet connection among multiple devices.

Video Tutorial:

Turn Your Ubuntu Laptop into a Wireless Access Point

1. Click the gear icon on the panel and select System Settings.

2. Select the Network control panel in Ubuntu’s System Settings window.

Note: If you want to share an Internet connection wirelessly, you’ll need to have a wired internet connection.

3. Select the Wireless network option and click the Use as Hotspot button at the bottom of the window.

4. You’ll be disconnected from your existing network and automatically re-connect to your newly created Hotspot.

5. After you click Create Hotspot, you’ll see a notification pop up that indicates your laptop’s wireless radio is now being used as an Wireless Access Point. You should be able to connect from other devices using the default network name – “AvoidErrors” – in this case and the security key displayed in the Network window.

6. You can also click the Options button to customize your wireless hotspot.

7. From the wireless tab, you can set a custom name for your wireless network using the SSID field.The Connect Automatically check box should allow you to use the hotspot as your default wireless network – when you start your computer, Ubuntu will create the hotspot instead of connecting to an existing wireless network.

8. In the Wireless Security tab, you can change your security key and method. Ubuntu can only create wireless hotspots with weak WEP encryption, not strong WPA encryption.

9. The “Shared to other computers” option on the IPv4 Settings tab tells Ubuntu to share your Internet connection with other computers connected to the hotspot.

10. If you don’t have a wireless Internet connection available to share, you can network computers together and communicate between them – example, share files.

Miguel

I started this tech blog back in 2011 as a place to write down processes I took to fix my client systems and network. Now I write some tips and tricks to help others with the tech issues that one might encounter.

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