ESP8266 Access point for Web server

Q&A Forum › ESP8266 Access point for Web server

dominique.nad1 asked 6 years ago

Dear Rui,

I hope that you are very well, and i have few questions to solve an new experimental project with ESP8266 Arduino IDE.

According to your ESP32 tutorial access point using softAP() method, I’m working to use this sketch to an ESP8266-01 with two GPIO0 and GPIO2 , including ESP8266WiFi library.

After few basic modification including new library and new GPIO labeling the project work normally with smartphone display or computer, and also output led(s). I’m very happy because the project works, but i need clarifications as follow to finalize this sketch.

1 – Why after opening the monitor (with the good COM port selected and also at a baud rate of 11500), there are no screen with AP IP Address, (same your ESP32 Book on tutorial page 432)?

2 – Why after selected the network and the password for connect to ESP8266 Server, the password isn’t asked every time, but only on first time?

3 – Why the IP address is always and only 192.168.4.1? How to change and chose an another IP?

4 – Why after ESP 8266 was connected the IP address wasn’t identified by Advanced IP Scanner?

5 – How to secure the project with mode Soft Access Point (Soft AP) if all IP address are a same for everybody. May be because a password network is enough…

6 – What do you think about SoftAPConfig, i understand that it’s possible to choose an IP address ..Do you have good example or tutorial, or doc easy to understand how to set up…

7 – It’s possible to use Static IP address to get an IP address fixed? If no Why?

8 – It’s possible to secure with “Base 24” to protect access? If no Why?

Thanks you very much for your help and good advice.

Kind regards,

Dominique NADIN (from Paris)

1 Answers

0 Vote Up Vote Down

Rui Santos Staff answered 6 years ago

1. It looks like the IP was already printed in the Serial Monitor (even after your open it), so you should restart your ESP while having the Serial Monitor open. When the ESP restarts, it will print the IP right away.

2. Your smartphone or laptop saves it as known network, so you don’t have to re-type the credentials. You can click the Forget network details button for example

3. It’s the default IP address for most networks, you can change it with: WiFi.softAPConfig (local_ip, gateway, subnet). That should allow you to configure a desired IP address:

IPAddress local_IP(192,168,4,22);
IPAddress gateway(192,168,4,9);
IPAddress subnet(255,255,255,0);
WiFi.softAP(ssid, password);
WiFi.softAPConfig(local_IP, gateway, subnet)
WiFi.softAPIP();

4. What do you mean? If the ESP is it’s own access point, it’s not connected to your network, so the IP scanner will not find it.

5. You can definite the IP for the access point, but at the moment I think there’s only the password for authentication

6. and 7. Just follow what I’ve mentioned in step 3 and you should be able to set the IP

8. You can add the Base 64 authentication to the web server created by the ESP (not to the access point)

I hope that helps and thanks for posting your question here! Let me know what else do you need.