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I've followed this guide on how to create a Wireless Access Point. Now I want to modify the behaviour as follows:

  1. If the home network is available, don't create a new network and connect to it.
  2. If the home network isn't avaiable, create a new network. Thanks
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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can find an example how to Switch between WiFi client and access point without reboot. But it is only for manual switching. It does not detect a hotspot to automatically connect to it and switch off the access point. To make it possible, the wpa_supplicant client service must always run so it can detect an available hotspot nearby. You can only switch on/off the access point in addition to the client service. So you have first to setup a Access point as WiFi repeater, optional with bridge or Access point as WiFi repeater with additional WiFi-dongle. Then you could use wpa_cli running as daemon with option -a to detect a connection to a hotspot and switch on/off the access point on the RasPi. A generic example of doing this you can find at Run a script when WiFi is connected to a particular wifi network.

If you use only the built-in WiFi device and not an additional USB/WiFi dongle, you should take note that switching the access point will also interrupt the client connection to the remote hotspot for a short time. This is due to a hardware/firmware limitation of the WiFi device. It shouldn't bother very much because you just connect to the hotspot. But if it isn't acceptable, you have to use an additional USB/WiFi dongle.

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I did develop a solution which did this, BUT while it did work with the onboard WiFi interfaces it is a kludge, so I can not recommend it as a reliable solution.

Raspberry Pi to configure automatically as an Access Point OR WiFi client.

It is far simpler to change modes using systemd-networkd.
This requires a total change to networking and more manual configuration, and I am not sure if there is a solution which automatically switches. You should study Ingo's many posts to see if one of these meets your needs.

If you did want to explore this, I suggest you first migrate to systemd-networkd. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/117843/8697 describes a relatively simple setup which works as well as dhcpcd.

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  • Thanks for your response. So it seems like there isn't a easy way to achieve this. I'm just developing on a Pi3 connected to the home network via Ethernet instead of a Pi Zero
    – flying_loaf_3
    Dec 8, 2020 at 7:11

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