I have a Rpi 4B running Buster and a AWUS036ACM USB Wifi dongle connected to it. I am looking at configuring it as an access point and a client.
When I type:
iw list | grep "valid interface combination" -A 8,
I get:
#{ IBSS } <= 1, #{ managed, AP, mesh point, P2P-client, P2P-GO } <= 2, total <= 2, #channels <= 1, STA/AP BI must match
Interpreting this result after reading about it, I thought I could have the managed and AP features at the same time although not sure. I am looking for advice on this topic! Thinking it could be a valid configuration, I tried to implemeent this configuration following the information in Access point as WiFi router/repeater, optional with bridge. With or without systemd-networkd, I can't set it up as I would like. I can either have the AP or the client but not both. Any suggestion, if it is not a limitation of the USB key is welcome!
Added on Feb. 04, 2024
I investigated a bit further the issue described in the original post. I could check that if I remove the USB dongle wifi, the combination AP with station is working using the Rpi4 wifi hardware. On the other hand, if I disable the Rpi4 wifi setting dtoverlay=disable-wifi in /boot/config.txt, I have the issue back where the usb wifi dongle does not work with both AP and station configuration.
The command journalctl -xe indicates that the uap0 interface could not be set up with the explanation: Name not unique on network.
It does seem to be due to the specific wifi dongle I use. I tried to meet the requirement of the USB wifi dongle setting beacon_int to 1 in the hostapd.conf file to the same value that is used by my router but it does not change anything.
Any ideas are welcome as I am running out of ideas for the moment!
Best regards,
JF
