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First, a long preamble: I've got a set of smart plugs which I'm planning to flash with a new firmware using https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert. Long story short, this utility does over-the-air flashing of these devices with a new firmware. Very convenient and useful. List most smart home stuff, it seems, this is windows and linux only. This is not such a big problem in light of Docker and Docker Desktop for MacOS or Virtualbox, however the utility is failing with a complaint that my Wifi NIC (interface en1) does not support "AP Mode".

Here's my question: how can I decisively tell whether my NIC supports (or does not support) AP mode? I've read that many (but not all) Mac NIC adapters may be lacking this feature, but am not sure how to tell using ifconfig whether this is the case. I can share my wifi connection, and I can sniff packets using WiFi on that mac, so this seems to me to indirectly indicate this is the case. But if not, I'll just get a USB dongle that will work and use that.

Bonus question: anyone recommend a MacOS compatible USB dongle that supports AP Mode in case my iMac does not natively do so?

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As far as I know all Macs sold within the last many years support AP mode.

I doubt that your problem is that your WiFi card does not support AP mode, rather it is the fact that you're operating on a virtual network interface inside VirtualBox or Docker - and that doesn't allow exposing such features to the guest OS.

Instead remove the WiFi interface from the host (i.e. it should not "grab" it over USB/PCIe or whatever - it should not load its drivers). Then expose it to the guest as a USB/PCIe device, and let it grab it.

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  • Thanks @jksoegaard. That was what I suspected, e.g. that modern Macs have this ability. And you've also anticipated my next step which was to resolve the issues of the virtual interface not "receiving" these features. But how exactly does one remove a network if from host and expose to guest? I'm working with Docker / docker-compose in this instance, but can just as happily work with Virtualbox...
    – Jeremy Kidwell
    Nov 1, 2020 at 10:49

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