hostapd implements a control interface that can be used by external programs to control the operations of the hostapd daemon and to get status information and event notifications. There is a small C library, in a form of a single C file, wpa_ctrl.c, that provides helper functions to facilitate the use of the control interface. External programs can link this file into them and then use the library functions documented in wpa_ctrl.h to interact with wpa_supplicant. This library can also be used with C++. hostapd_cli.c is an example program using this library.

There are multiple mechanisms for inter-process communication. For example, Linux version of hostapd is using UNIX domain sockets for the control interface. The use of the functions defined in wpa_ctrl.h can be used to hide the details of the used IPC from external programs.

Using the control interface

External programs, e.g., a GUI or a configuration utility, that need to communicate with hostapd should link in wpa_ctrl.c. This allows them to use helper functions to open connection to the control interface with wpa_ctrl_open() and to send commands with wpa_ctrl_request().

hostapd uses the control interface for two types of communication: commands and unsolicited event messages. Commands are a pair of messages, a request from the external program and a response from hostapd. These can be executed using wpa_ctrl_request(). Unsolicited event messages are sent by hostapd to the control interface connection without specific request from the external program for receiving each message. However, the external program needs to attach to the control interface with wpa_ctrl_attach() to receive these unsolicited messages.

If the control interface connection is used both for commands and unsolicited event messages, there is potential for receiving an unsolicited message between the command request and response. wpa_ctrl_request() caller will need to supply a callback, msg_cb, for processing these messages. Often it is easier to open two control interface connections by calling wpa_ctrl_open() twice and then use one of the connections for commands and the other one for unsolicited messages. This way command request/response pairs will not be broken by unsolicited messages. wpa_cli.c is an example of how to use only one connection for both purposes and wpa_gui demonstrates how to use two separate connections.

Once the control interface connection is not needed anymore, it should be closed by calling wpa_ctrl_close(). If the connection was used for unsolicited event messages, it should be first detached by calling wpa_ctrl_detach().

Control interface commands

Following commands can be used with wpa_ctrl_request():

PING

This command can be used to test whether hostapd is replying to the control interface commands. The expected reply is PONG if the connection is open and hostapd is processing commands.