WiFi Access Point

In isolated areas where network connectivity is not an option, you may wish to access motionEyeOS via its own WiFi network. This can be achieved by configuring your board as a WiFi Access Point.

While having your setup behave as an access point may sound cool, keep in mind that:

not all board/WiFi adapter combinations support this feature (the Raspberry PI 3 and Zero W do)
the actual throughput is in many cases below what you normally get when using a proper access point
the connection is often unstable due to broken or experimental drivers
the WiFi signal strength is usually lower than what you normally get when using a proper access point
you can't use your WiFi adapter in both access point and client (station) mode at the same time
motionEyeOS still needs a network connection to function well; if you really don't want/need one, set os_networkless to true

Access Point Activation

To activate the access point mode on your motionEyeOS you'll need to complete the following two steps:

Enable hostapd

The hostapd daemon is the component that makes your WiFi adapter broadcast a network SSID and allow other clients to connect. It is automatically started if you provide a hostapd.conf file. This needs to be placed on the boot partition before the first boot, as it will be copied on the data partition and used thereafter.

Following is a simple example of a hostapd configuration that will create an access point with network name myssid, key 12345678 and WPA2 encryption, on channel 1:
```
 ssid=myssid
 wpa_passphrase=12345678
 wpa=2
 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
 interface=wlan0
 channel=1
 driver=nl80211
 hw_mode=g
 ieee80211n=1
 ieee80211ac=1
```

If you are using a motionEyeOS newer than 20200203 (including dev versions), you need to change the line:

interface=wlan0
to
interface=ap0

Enable dnsmasq

The dnsmasq acts as a DHCP server, offering your connected clients an IP configuration. It is automatically started if you provide a dnsmasq.conf file. This needs to be placed on the boot partition before the first boot, as it will be copied on the data partition and used thereafter.

Following is a simple example of a dnsmasq configuration that will enable the DHCP server on the wlan0 interface, offering IP addresses in the range of 192.168.27.50 to 192.168.27.150, valid for 24 hours:
```
 interface=wlan0
 dhcp-range=192.168.27.50,192.168.27.150,24h
 dhcp-leasefile=/data/dnsmasq.leases
```