Trying to setting up hotspot, unable to activate WPA3 Personal

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1

I have a desktop with built in wired ethernet and wi-fi. The wired ethernet works fine. I would like to be able to use the wi-fi as an access point (a.k.a hotspot, correct?) so I my laptop and phone have a wi-fi to connect to so they can get internet access.

I am using KDE Plasma. In System Settings → Wi-Fi & Networking, I created a Wi-Fi connection.
In the Wi-Fi tab, I selected Access Point as the Mode.
In the IPv4 tab, the default Method was Shared to other computers, which I left alone.
In the Wi-Fi Security Tab, I want to select WPA3 Personal, but that’s where I have problems. So for the moment, I can select either None or WPA/WPA2 Personal (and supply a password).

I hit Apply, and then right-clicked on my Wi-Fi device to select Connect, to start up the access point.

When using None or WPA/WPA2 Personal, the device status changes to Connected after a quick moment.
I can then connect my MacBook to this hotspot and the internet works. I want to note that using WPA/WPA2 Personal, my MacBook gives me a Weak Security (WPA) warning, and suggests I configure my router to use WPA2/WPA3 Personal. This implies to me that my Manjaro desktop is using WPA1 instead of WPA2 for that setting titled “WPA/WPA2 Personal”.

So finally, if I change my Manjaro desktop setting to WPA3, I cannot start up the device/service. (“Connect”). When I hit Connect, I see a spinning wheel next to the device for a little while as the status text under the device name says “Connecting”. Then finally it times out and I see 2 notifications appear on my desktop for a few seconds.
The first one says: Connection “myhotspot” deactivated.
The second one says: Authentication supplicant timed out.

My desktop has an Asus ROG Strix B450-I Gaming motherboard. Manjaro Settings Manager reports my wi-fi Network Controller as RTL8822BE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi adapter (Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.). I looked this up, and it should support WPA3 as far as I can tell.

So my question is, how do I get WPA3 working? If that isn’t possible, my fallback question is how do I force WPA2 and not do WPA1 in that combo “WPA/WPA2 Personal” setting?

Also, I am not familiar with the network utilities underneath the GUI. So I would appreciate any handholding if the solution requires me to go there. Thank you.

2

How did you reach that conclusion?

The difference between WPA2 and WPA3 is a rolling key exchange.

This rolling exchange makes it more difficult to bruteforce the network.

Please do realize that bruteforcing a WPA2 encrypted key exchange will take a long time - so unless you are a high value target not many will bother to even try.

Your wifi card may support WPA3 but to setup an access point that supports WPA3 you need to find a software that support the rolling key exchange.

Please see GitHub - haraldrudell/Linux-WPA3-Personal: WPA3-Personal (the most secure as of 2020) Access Point using Linux for a hand holding guide - whether it will work for you or not :man_shrugging:

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3

I have old home routers that support WPA2, but not WPA3. My Mac has never given me the Weak Security (WPA) warning before connecting with those.

4

I remembered a thread about creating an access point. From the topic it became clear that it is not plug’n’play but more like plug’n’pray :slight_smile:

→ Wifi bridge (kernel 6.11 breaks linux-wifi-hotspot wireless bridge)

There is a custom package you can build from AUR linux-wifi-hotspot.

The device, the drivers for the device (either provided by kernel or custom build) is important.

You can try building the package - keep in mind that custom packages from AUR, very often requires Manjaro unstable branch.

pamac build linux-wifi-hotspot

→ [Need-To-Know] About Manjaro and AUR

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