This article is practical for home servers and infrastructure. It is unlikely that what is described in this article will be relevant for production.

Why would you need an access point on a server?

• This will potentially allow you to add one additional level of security by adding a range of addresses to the access point settings that will be issued to clients via dhsp. Then you can use the firewall settings to limit the use of some services only for clients with an IP address from your access point’s pool.
• You can get an additional connection channel to your home server for those cases when the main router does not work for some reason.
• Since your home server will be able to operate in a mode where it does not need intermediate devices for connection, you will be able to increase its portability. You can take your home server with you on a business trip (if it is compact), and you can operate with data on it without having a travel router with you, and without connecting it to routers in hotels.

Installing the required package

sudo apt-get install network-manager

Getting the name of a WiFi device

ls /sys/class/ieee80211/phy0/device/net/

Adding a configuration section to the netplan config

  renderer: NetworkManager
  wifis:
    wlx90de80f97ff1: # Here you need to you your wifi device name
      optional: true
      dhcp4: true
      addresses: [192.168.10.1/24] # DHCP ip range
      access-points:
        "drx3": # Wifi network name
          auth:
            key-management: psk
            password: "testpw" # Use a stronger pw
          mode: ap
          band: 5GHz
          networkmanager:
            passthrough:
              wifi-security.proto: "rsn"

Applying your new AP config

sudo netplan apply

Now you will be able to connect to your homeserver directly via wifi.