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Running Astroberry Servers on two RPis at the same time

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I would like to run a second Astroberry equipment not far away from the first. Is there an obvious (simple) way to operate in hotspot mode with a different IP address?
Thanks for any suggestions.
3 years 4 months ago #63205

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You can edit the address with nmcli. I did something similar with my two Pi setups that each wanted to use 10.42.0.1 for their hotspots.
nmcli connection modify <Hotspot> ipv4.address <XX.XX.X.X/24>
nmcli connection up Hotspot

For my case, My Hotspot SSID/Connection name was AdventurePi (named after its use on a Star Adventurer.) So the command above with my details looked like this.
nmcli connection modify AdventurePi IPv4.address 10.42.1.1/24
nmcli connection up AdventurePi

References:

It now creates a hotspot with an IP address on 10.42.1.1 that will not conflict with the other system with an address at 10.42.0.1

References:
NetworkManager documentation
NetworkManager ManPages
Gnome Help Page
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Last edit: 3 years 4 months ago by Andrew.
3 years 4 months ago #63215

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Great explanation - I’m out capturing the NGC 1499 with one rig at the moment so I’ll have a play with this tomorrow morning - thanks a lot!
3 years 4 months ago #63229

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So I tried out nmcli, as you suggested, but without direct success. I think that the commands you quoted were related to Ubuntu, and the RPi OS doesn’t seem to have the same ones. I searched the nmcli help and I guess I could have pursued the issue by carrying on, however in the meantime I have found a different approach which seems to be working. I right click on the WiFi symbol in the taskbar, and select ‘edit connections’. Then select the Hotspot and click on the Cog symbol. Open the Tab ‘IPv4 Settings’ and in the box ‘Address (Optional)’ box click ‘Add’ and insert the new address e.g. 10.42.1.1 and the Netmask 24. Then click on Save, and reboot. The system boots up with the Hotspot IP address that I inserted.
3 years 4 months ago #63452

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Yeah. My approach was applied on a system running Lubuntu. Although I'm a bit surprised it didn't work. That being said, your alternative is a good approach.
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3 years 4 months ago #63469

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So, really you would normally set one RPi up as a hotspot, and then configure the other RPi as a Wifi Client to the Hotspot on the other RPi.

Then you can connect your laptop to the Hotspot, and simultaneously be able to access both RPis.

If you set both up as a Hotspot then I would expect your laptop might connect to either one, but only be able to access the RPi that is running the hotspot that your laptop connects to.
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3 years 4 months ago #63477

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That’s a great idea!

At the moment I’m often running one rig at a time. And if both are running, choosing the WiFi to log onto with the laptop isn’t a major problem, nor is switching over. But when both rigs are running alongside each other it would be really helpful to stay logged in on one WiFi network and navigate between the two Astroberrys.

I really like the way that I can disconnect VNC viewer and leave the RPis to get on with their work!
3 years 4 months ago #63479

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Just a further point and question! I have set up the two RPis running Astroberry such that one is fixed to use only the 5GHz band for its Hotspot, and the other only the 2.4GHz band. In the first case, I did this after reading posts (e.g. from Doug) about the interaction/interference of the 2.4GHz WiFi with the USB3.0 ports. In the second case, I have to use 2.4GHz in order to communicate with the Sky-Watcher AZGTi mount, which only works with that frequency band. Is there any way to operate a single network with the two RPis and the AZGTi and a laptop in dual bands simultaneously?
3 years 4 months ago #63483

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That is pretty complicated then, ideally everything would use the 5GHz band, as it is faster, and causes less interference.

To work in the way I mentioned before everything must be using the same band.

If the two Raspberry Pi's are close together, and you could run an ethernet cable between the two Pis then it might be possible to make a layer-2 bridge between the Ethernet port with the WLAN port, I know it is possible to do - but beware - if you google for instructions on how to do that you do get results, but what they seem to describe is _not_ a layer-2 bridge, but something quite different.

This is a more generic explanation of what you would do, and describes layer-2 bridging: wiki.debian.org/BridgeNetworkConnections
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3 years 4 months ago #63484

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So I have tested the idea of setting up the two RPis, one (Astroberry Red) as a Hotspot (2.4GHz for the AZGTi) and the other (Astroberry Blue) as a client on the Astroberry Red network. From my laptop connected to the Red network I can VNC into both RPis simultaneously. Red has only the Hotspot connection defined, with the fixed IP address 10.42.0.1. Blue has two options, Hotspot mode with fixed IP address 10.42.1.1 with priority -99 and as a client on the Red network with priority +99. The first time I switched on Red then Blue with a monitor attached, Blue connected as a client as I could check on the monitor. However since going headless again, Blue always sets up as its own Hotspot so I can see the two networks on my Laptop connections list, plus also the AZGTi (192.168.4.1). I am not confident that the priority levels selection actually works - I have had problems before where an RPi would still set up its Hotspot when close to the home WLAN with higher priority setting. I am running each RPi booting from SSD so there is always an active USB3.0 port which I guess could be adding interference into the mix. I will try again with SD cards instead of SSDs to try to eliminate some issues, but any thoughts on any of this?
3 years 3 months ago #63578

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Yeah, I don't take those priority levels into account with any of my Linux setups. I only create a single connection per card, and to be honest, I avoid using Wifi where possible.

I suppose it can depend on startup situation, if a network is available and it connects then that is done, there is no trigger to change networks even if the situation changes, and if it does, what is the trigger for that to happen?

Best way is to keep everything as simple as possible, having multiple network configurations enabled is not something that I would want to leave to chance, especially when in my location, the opportunity of good weather conditions are few and far between, and when the opportunity for set up actually arises - I'd like to be able to just get going without too much hassle and not leave unknown priorities of Wifi have their effect on their own.
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3 years 3 months ago #63592

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I have exactly the same view as you about avoiding risks when the sky’s clear! Hence trying everything on dull days. I can live with the present solution with the two hotspots. I really want to avoid cables - WiFi works fine, and the great thing is that once a capture session is set on its way, it doesn’t matter if the WiFi fails.
3 years 3 months ago #63595

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