ASTROBERRY - How force Hotspot on

[BargeGazer]

I am setting Astroberry up on a Pi4 and have succeeded in setting up to its Hotspot, ethernet and my home wifi.

To continue setting up I would like to be able to sometimes connect to the astroberry's hotspot while in range of my home network just to check everything out before heading away from home.

Is there a way of forcing the astroberry to drop the home wifi and activate its Hotspot (and the reverse) without editing the advanced network controls and the priorities assigned to the connections and rebooting or alternatively turning off my home network.

Many thanks, David

[Stuart1971]

24 minutes ago, BargeGazer said:

I am setting Astroberry up on a Pi4 and have succeeded in setting up to its Hotspot, ethernet and my home wifi.

To continue setting up I would like to be able to sometimes connect to the astroberry's hotspot while in range of my home network just to check everything out before heading away from home.

Is there a way of forcing the astroberry to drop the home wifi and activate its Hotspot (and the reverse) without editing the advanced network controls and the priorities assigned to the connections and rebooting or alternatively turning off my home network.

Many thanks, David

Hi,

In a word no....not without altering the priorities...

[BargeGazer]

That's a shame but thanks.

 

[CedricTheBrave]

You could just plug it in to the router directly with a network cable

[stash_old]

Change the password on the RPI of your home Wifi so that it is incorrect - then reboot. To allow home Wifi just change the password again to the correct one!

Note you will need to be attached via Ethernet or have a KB/Mouse/Screen attached.

OR

buy a cheap Wifi extender which is attached via ethernet to your home network  but give it another name like "RPIWifi" - you will still have Internet etc as it should ,depending on your home router, get IP addresses etc from the DHCP server (thing that gives all devices IP addresses). Connect the RPI to this instead of your home wifi. Then all you have to do is switch off the extebder when you want the HOTSPOT to appear. - Cost about £15. No changing anything on your RPI.

IMHO I never use Home Wifi with RPI - Ethernet never fails (well 99% time) , is faster (1gb full duplex and even on the RPI not drop off), no time lags (all Wifi has this even 5ghz). Yep HOTSPOT for "in the field" fine!

But whatever "floats your boat"!

 

[sclements]

There is in fact a method to switch between the connection types by using  the nmcli command .  I have done this successfully and created scripts on the desktop to execute the switch.

The example below switches to connection named as:  Astroberry HotSpot. Create another with the connection name of your home network connection.

 

!# /bin/bash

nmcli -p con up "Astroberry HotSpot" ifname wlan0

 

 

 

 

[kens]

On 03/06/2020 at 20:20, CedricTheBrave said:

You could just plug it in to the router directly with a network cable

+1

I leave the wifi permanently as a hotspot and if I want to check on things I just plug in an ethernet cable . That also means it only gets updates when it is on the ethernet because that is its only route to the internet. The less you change the setup the less chance of things going wrong

[Deepblue12]

On 18/01/2021 at 03:02, kens said:

+1

I leave the wifi permanently as a hotspot and if I want to check on things I just plug in an ethernet cable . That also means it only gets updates when it is on the ethernet because that is its only route to the internet. The less you change the setup the less chance of things going wrong

excellent idea!

Thanks