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access external wifi
#1
All,
I have spent all of one evening and one day getting familiar with OpenPlotter, so don't expect much from me!  I have been using OpenCPN for some time on a laptop and on an Android tablet.  I have loaded SignalK on a Rpi3 for my sailboat and seen the instrument panel displays on tablets and laptop.  I have a Kbox (https://hackaday.io/project/11055-kbox) on my boat that collects all my instrument (NMEA0183) data, adds AIS, barometer, accelerators (pitch, heel) and sends it all out in NMEA format over its own wifi network.  So I thought it only natural to put OPenCPN on an Rpi on the boat so then I can access the charts (and dashboard) on tablets anywhere.  

I started with the "so-called" lazy approach and installed OPenPLotter on an SD card and booted up the Rpi.  I added a serial port gps to the Rpi (just as a backup to my Garmin in the instruments) and I can access that data using direct connection in OpenCPN on the Rpi.  If I turn on the access point and enable VNC I can remotely control the Rpi from any tablet, nice.  But if I turn off AP and VNC  I don't seem to be able to access external wifi servers like either my home routers or the Kbox.

So my question is: how do I do this?  If I go to the wireless task bar item it says wlan0 not associated, so I don't see any local wifi networks.  Naturally, I got frustrated (because I am not an expert in these things) and I started from scratch and just loaded Noobs on another SD card, booted up the Rpi, upgraded, updated, added OpenCPN, and the changes to get the serial gps to work and on this system everything works as expected.  I can turn on the VNC and remote into the Rpi or I can connect to an external wifi tcp using the task bar wireless item.  

I don't know what to suspect or expect.  I know that in order to both receive and transmit over wifi on the Rpi using OpenPlotter I need two wifi systems (one on a usb dongle), but I thought I could at least switch the one I have back and forth.  Is it because the SignalK server has started when you boot up that the wifi is already committed?  And if so is there a way to turn that off.  I have not been able to find a config file for OpenPlotter (perhaps if I knew where to look I could find it.  

It is a bit frustrating, because I don't consider myself totally new to these things, but yet every new layer of stuff added seems to add its own level of complexity.

Oh I should add, if I do a "sudo iwlist wlan0 scan" I do see the local networks as different cells.

Hope someone can help,
thanks,
Ron

(2017-08-10, 03:36 AM)CapnRon Wrote: All,
I have spent all of one evening and one day getting familiar with OpenPlotter, so don't expect much from me!  I have been using OpenCPN for some time on a laptop and on an Android tablet.  I have loaded SignalK on a Rpi3 for my sailboat and seen the instrument panel displays on tablets and laptop.  I have a Kbox (https://hackaday.io/project/11055-kbox) on my boat that collects all my instrument (NMEA0183) data, adds AIS, barometer, accelerators (pitch, heel) and sends it all out in NMEA format over its own wifi network.  So I thought it only natural to put OPenCPN on an Rpi on the boat so then I can access the charts (and dashboard) on tablets anywhere.  

I started with the "so-called" lazy approach and installed OPenPLotter on an SD card and booted up the Rpi.  I added a serial port gps to the Rpi (just as a backup to my Garmin in the instruments) and I can access that data using direct connection in OpenCPN on the Rpi.  If I turn on the access point and enable VNC I can remotely control the Rpi from any tablet, nice.  But if I turn off AP and VNC  I don't seem to be able to access external wifi servers like either my home routers or the Kbox.

So my question is: how do I do this?  If I go to the wireless task bar item it says wlan0 not associated, so I don't see any local wifi networks.  Naturally, I got frustrated (because I am not an expert in these things) and I started from scratch and just loaded Noobs on another SD card, booted up the Rpi, upgraded, updated, added OpenCPN, and the changes to get the serial gps to work and on this system everything works as expected.  I can turn on the VNC and remote into the Rpi or I can connect to an external wifi tcp using the task bar wireless item.  

I don't know what to suspect or expect.  I know that in order to both receive and transmit over wifi on the Rpi using OpenPlotter I need two wifi systems (one on a usb dongle), but I thought I could at least switch the one I have back and forth.  Is it because the SignalK server has started when you boot up that the wifi is already committed?  And if so is there a way to turn that off.  I have not been able to find a config file for OpenPlotter (perhaps if I knew where to look I could find it.  

It is a bit frustrating, because I don't consider myself totally new to these things, but yet every new layer of stuff added seems to add its own level of complexity.

Oh I should add, if I do a "sudo iwlist wlan0 scan" I do see the local networks as different cells.

Hope someone can help,
thanks,
Ron

Ok, so I did find the OpenPlotter Startup file in the .config folder and it looks like it is either starting a wifi Access point or a Wifi server (client), but I am not sure that I understand what I am reading in the code.
Reply
#2
Hi & welcome to the forums.

If I understand correctly, you want to have openplotter connected to a wifi access point? Have a look at the wifi tab -
https://sailoog.gitbooks.io/openplotter-...fi-ap.html

With a Pi3 you can either have it set up as an access point or connected to another wifi network, not both at the same time. If you untick the "enable access point" then apply after a few moments you'll be able to connect to another wifi network via the network icon on the task bar Also, if you then click refresh in the access point tab you can still VNC or SSH in using the IP address shown there. Best of both worlds is get a little wifi dongle, then you can have both Cool
Reply
#3
(2017-08-10, 10:07 AM)PaddyB Wrote: Hi & welcome to the forums.

If I understand correctly, you want to have openplotter connected to a wifi access point?  Have a look at the wifi tab -
https://sailoog.gitbooks.io/openplotter-...fi-ap.html

With a Pi3 you can either have it set up as an access point or connected to another wifi network, not both at the same time. If you untick the "enable access point" then apply after a few moments you'll be able to connect to another wifi network via the network icon on the task bar Also, if you then click refresh in the access point tab you can still VNC or SSH in using the IP address shown there. Best of both worlds is get a little wifi dongle, then you can have both Cool

Paddy,
I guess what I am saying is that does not work for me (I did look at the wifi instructions but I cannot get them to work as you say).  I start up the system (with the enable access point) box unchecked.  I have turned off the VNC - no connection.  I move the curser over to the wireless tool in the top panel and it says - No wireless interfaces found.  WLAN0 Disassociated from OpenPlotter.  If I open up Network Preferences to configure interfaces or see SSID, there is nothing in the boxes below.  I tried the wifi scan and it shows networks, but I don't know how to set up the system to access them, so looking for a little more help.

If I click on status I get the message - missing AP! or dirver is not nl80211 up network: wlan9 dnsmasq (dhcp-server) running hostapad (AP): running networking: started ip address blank

Also,separate subject. I installed the Ultimate GPS to this Rpi using the internal serial port.  In order to get it to operate properly I had to modify the cmdline.txt and the config.txt files to switch ttyS0 and ttyAMA0 (this is what the internal now runs on).  OpenCpn find the GPS NMEA data fine using a direct connect to ttyAMA0, but your start up routine never checks that serial port during startup.  It checks ttyS0 but does not find the NMEA data there, I never see it check ttyAMA0 (at 9600 baud) to find an attached device.

thanks,
Ron
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#4
I am still looking for help on managing wireless network on OPenPlotter system. I have gone to this page here:
https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/qu...associated
and followed their instructions; I tried killing the current wlan0 process (/sbin/wpa_supplicant -u -s -0 /run/wpa_supplicant) but it keeps coming back.

wlan0 remains unassociated
I can see the wireless networks available, but after entering the password nothing happens. I have modified the wpa_supplicant.conf file to include the SSID and PWD as well

When I run $sudo wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B D I get back
Success initialized wpa_supplicant
ctrl_iface exists and seems to be in use - cannot overide it
Delete '/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0' mannually if it is not in use
Failed to initialize control interface 'Dir=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
You may have another wpa_supplicant process already running

anyone?
thanks,
Ron

And a bit more:
If I run iwconfig, I get
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=31 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Managment:on

Ron
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#5
OK,
I don't know what I did, but now I have the Network Manager Applet in my upper panel and I think it is working as expected. The network manager seems to be the only applet that does not identify itself when the arrow moves over it. But more than that it was not becoming active when I turned off the access point before. Now it becomes active when I uncheck enable access point and it is obvious how to connect to the local networks.

I have no clue what I did or what happened to make it start working. Sometimes you just gotta get lucky!

thanks,
Ron
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