V4K tethering / Access Point / HotSpot not working

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi all,

I use a V4K and want it to use it as an Access Point in the living room.

I have an openWRT router with the IP Address 192.168.100.1, DNS, DHCP range 192.168.100.x - x+n. And WiFi on Channel 1 on the first floor with SSID foo.

V4K is connected via Ethernet to the Lan of the openWRT Router. The IP Address of V4K is 192.168.100.80.

I want to use the V4K as an Access Point in the ground floor to connect to the LAN Network 192.168.100.0. It should send the SSID foo on channel 6, so there is no overlap to Channel 1 in the first floor.

When i enable the wifi i can scan the already available wifi networks. When i enable the Tethering section in “my OSMC” settings, the wifi does not become available.

And the other access point which is at the moment in the ground floor and should be replaced by the V4K, starts making problems. When i disable wifi it becomes useable again. I have not finally reproduced the behaviour so it is possibly unrelated the the tethering issue…

I have already read similar posts but they do not finally describe or solve my issue:
Create own wifi - stopped thread
Cannot set WiFi country code or tether - which seems to suggest to do it manually with hostapd via cli

Turn wifi dongle into an access point - #3 by SpaceMadMonkey - points to an adafruit tutorial

Static IP for WiFi in Access Point mode - #5 by sam_nazarko - SN says osmc is working on the topic.

And i have to say, i assume tethering is a misleading wording. Tethering is used as “HotSpot for 3G/LTE uplink” from what i think tethering is.
In networking it’s always labeled as Access Point [OpenWrt Wiki] Wireless Access Point / Dumb Access Point or possibly as a hotspot.
The other direction it is normally referred as Wifi-Client. backwards tethering is misleading as well.

Is there some outcome on the V4K Access Point issue? (selection of country code, channel, channel width, signal strength etc… )
Should it be working?
Is the fix “do it manually with hostapd” the official workaround for it?
Is there an official howto/guide for the hostapd solution?
May i help via any logs?

thanks in advance
cave

2

It’s not the official way but probably the quickest. The issue can occur when some WiFi drivers don’t implement nl80211 (which ConnMan uses) properly. Did you try tethering by the command line to rule out a My OSMC issue?

Sam

3

Yes it is. It’s a term connman uses which isn’t explained in any of their docs afaict. I suspect connman’s main use is in mobile phones where it can be used for what the mobile operators call tethering.

IIRC I had the same experience - wifi dies when tethering is invoked in MyOSMC but I didn’t try the commandline.

Seems to me you are expecting a lot of connman if you want your v4k AP in the same subnet as the ethernet and other APs. @dillthedog may be able to help.

4

Unfortunately, I have never had any reason to use tethering and am away from home (again!) so can’t do too much by way of experimentation.

I think using hostapd is a reasonable way forward and there should enough guides out there to help with setting it up.