Bridged AP does not work on BananaPiPro (Armbian_community_26.8.0-trunk.170_Bananapipro_trixie_current_6.18.35_minimal)

[loeriver]

Armbianmonitor:

https://paste.armbian.com/fawolicoki

I tried to build an bridged AP so that I can reach the Internet from a WiFi net spawned from the BananaPiPro. By this I followed the procedure from armbian-config (config.network.sh).

 

After install the AP is shown in the login screen:

 

WiFi AP:      SSID: (BPi), channel 7 (2442 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2442 MHz

 

When I try to connect from my mobile phone it either says "connecting without Internet".

The output in syslog is then:

 

026-07-06T12:35:02.645970+02:00 bananapipro hostapd: wlan0: STA 22:50:7b:ac:e3:2e IEEE 802.11: associated
2026-07-06T12:35:02.690671+02:00 bananapipro hostapd: wlan0: STA 22:50:7b:ac:e3:2e RADIUS: starting accounting session 500A81EDD1715454
2026-07-06T12:35:02.691497+02:00 bananapipro hostapd: wlan0: STA 22:50:7b:ac:e3:2e WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)

 

Ort otherwise the phone just says "cannot connect".

 

My netplan file is as follows:

 

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    end0:
      dhcp4: false
      dhcp6: false
      macaddress: "02:cd:08:83:3c:f3"
    wlan0:
      dhcp4: false
      dhcp6: false
  bridges:
    br0:
      addresses:
      - "192.168.178.29/24"
      nameservers:
        addresses:
        - 9.9.9.9
        - 1.1.1.1
      interfaces:
      - wlan0
      - end0
      routes:
      - metric: 200
        to: default
        via: "192.168.178.1"

 

The hostapd.conf is:

 

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid=BPi
hw_mode=g
channel=7
wmm_enabled=0
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=secret
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP

ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0

ieee80211n=1
ht_capab=[DSSS_CK-40][HT20+]

preamble=1

bridge=br0

 

The output of network list is:

 

root@bananapipro:/etc/hostapd# networkctl list
IDX LINK  TYPE     OPERATIONAL SETUP     
  1 lo    loopback carrier     unmanaged
  2 end0  ether    enslaved    configured
  3 br0   bridge   routable    configured
  4 wlan0 wlan     enslaved    failed   

 

Does anybody have an idea where to look further for a solution? As I have an AP running on my other BananaPiPro (Bookworm CLI / Networkmanager, manual config, not bridged) it cannot be a complete HW limitation, I think.

[eselarm]

I had a quick look at the script, but it is too complex for me to see what could be wrong. Also there is netplan layer in between that I am not familiar with anymore. Maybe you can look at what is generated in terms of systemd-networkd files (e.g. in /etc/systemd/network/ ). And also use commands like ip route etc to see the actual state.

 

1 issue with the Armbian netplan+systemd-networkd/resolved was that it assumed GATWAY_IP=DNS_IP , might be fixed now, I don't know. I removed all netplan stuff (and all Ubuntu's) as it got too complicated for me compared to plain NM or plain systemd-networkd or even manual step by step with ip that I still have in old scripts for mobile 4G etc.

In addition it cost me a week or so to figure or Rockchip BSP based kernel (6.1.115 'latest') rejected various MAC addresses on my LAN when an MT7621u based USB stick served as WiFi accesspoint. With 7.x mainline based kernel no such issue. I even ran OpenWRT in an arm64 KVM to discover/debug that issue.

But it is NetworkManager based, including just text edits of .nmconnection files, I have not used systemd-networkd and hostapd (yet), but might test it as hostapd is then the same more or less as in OpenWRT.

 

Edited 53 minutes ago by eselarm