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I have configured Raspberry Pi 4 as a WiFi hotspot with hostapd on Raspbian Buster. I connected 10 clients, no problem. I want to use it as a Free WiFi.
So, I concern to know how many clients could be connected without any essential problem?

I searched about this title but I got nothing. Additionally, the WLAN Hardware of the Raspberry Pi 4 B is Broadcom BCM43455.

Any experience?
Thanks in advance.

M. Rostami
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  • @Ephemeral Thanks for the response. So, by default, the max number of connected clients is 255 which can be further to e.g 400 by changing the config file, right? – M. Rostami Jan 10 '20 at 15:06
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    You're welcome. Sorry it's 2007 per default. `IEEE 802.11 has a limit of 2007

    different association IDs, so this number should not be larger than that.` : So yes you can !

     – Ephemeral Jan 10 '20 at 15:07
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    @Ephemeral Alright, so, the value of max_num_sta can't be more than "2007". – M. Rostami Jan 10 '20 at 15:09
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    @Ephemeral Yes, I can widen the number of connected clients by DHCP server or IP address subnet mask. I configured the IP address range to /16, which means "65534" client can be connected. Thanks. – M. Rostami Jan 10 '20 at 15:17
  • Sorry I have deleted my comments about dhcp because your question is for hostapd only – Ephemeral Jan 10 '20 at 15:18
  • @Ephemeral I think it's important. Imagine I'll change hostapd.conf to max_num_sta=500 and IP address range to /24. In this case, just "254" of clients can connect to the hotspot. (Android and iOS can't be connected but Windows or Linux client would be connected without any Layer-3 connection, though.) – M. Rostami Jan 10 '20 at 15:25
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    In this case, just "254" of clients can connect to the hotspot sorry but no, in this case 500 STAs can get association and only 254 clients can get an IP addr – Ephemeral Jan 10 '20 at 15:27
  • @Ephemeral Sorry, yes. I meant that but in a bad way. – M. Rostami Jan 10 '20 at 15:31
  • WiFi is a shared medium. What are "essential problems" for you? Response time, transfer rate, etc.? What limits? – Ingo Jan 12 '20 at 11:15
  • @Ingo Thank you for the response. Problems like you mentioned. Additionally, for example I had an experience like it with an AP, the number of associated clients reached "400" and suddenly SSID disappeared. I mean this kind of problems, unusual and unnormal. – M. Rostami Jan 12 '20 at 11:31

2 Answers2

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From the hostapd.conf file :

# Maximum number of stations allowed in station table. New stations will be
# rejected after the station table is full. IEEE 802.11 has a limit of 2007
# different association IDs, so this number should not be larger than that.
# (default: 2007) 

max_num_sta=255
Ephemeral
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As mentioned in a related question on the RPi3 the number appears to vary from less than 10 upwards - dependent upon firmware version/config? - see the Raspberry Pi GitHUb issue on the matter. An alternative is to use a USB WiFi adapter.

Pierz
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