Thursday, September 18, 2014

Connect to WiFi network from command line in Linux

Read full details here: Connect to WiFi network from command line in Linux



How many of you failed to connect to WiFi network in Linux? Did you bumped into issues like the followings in different forums, discussion page, blogs? I am sure everyone did at some point. Following list shows just the results from Page 1 of a Google search result with “Unable to connect to WiFi network in Linux” keywords.
  1. Cannot connect to wifi at home after upgrade to ubuntu 14.04
  2. Arch Linux not connecting to Wifi anymore
  3. I can’t connect to my wifi
  4. Cannot connect to WiFi
  5. Ubuntu 13.04 can detect wi-fi but can’t connect
  6. Unable to connect to wireless network ath9k
  7. Crazy! I can see wireless network but can’t connect
  8. Unable to connect to Wifi Access point in Debian 7
  9. Unable to connect Wireless

Following guide explains how you can connect to a WiFi network in Linux from command Line. This guide will take you through the steps for connecting to a WPA/WPA2 WiFi network.




WiFi network from command line – Required tools

Following tools are required to connect to WiFi network in Linux from command line
  1. wpa_supplicant
  2. iw
  3. ip
  4. ping
Before we jump into technical jargons let’s just quickly go over each item at a time.

Linux WPA/WPA2/IEEE 802.1X Supplicant

wpa_supplicant is a WPA Supplicant for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows with support for WPA and WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i / RSN). It is suitable for both desktop/laptop computers and embedded systems. Supplicant is the IEEE 802.1X/WPA component that is used in the client stations. It implements key negotiation with a WPA Authenticator and it controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11 authentication/association of the wlan driver.

iw – Linux Wireless

iw is a new nl80211 based CLI configuration utility for wireless devices. It supports all new drivers that have been added to the kernel recently. The old tool iwconfing, which uses Wireless Extensions interface, is deprecated and it’s strongly recommended to switch to iw and nl80211.

ip – ip program in Linux

ip is used to show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels. It is used for enabling/disabling devices and it helps you to find general networking informations. ip was written by Alexey N. Kuznetsov and added in Linux 2.2. Use man ip to see full help/man page.

ping

Good old ping For every ping, there shall be a pong …. ping-pong – ping-pong – ping-pong … that should explain it.

BTW man ping helps too …

Step 1: Find available WiFi adapters – WiFi network from command line

This actually help .. I mean you need to know your WiFi device name before you go an connect to a WiFi network. So just use the following command that will list all the connected WiFi adapters in your Linux machines.

root@kali:~# iw dev
phy#1
    Interface wlan0
        ifindex 4
        type managed
root@kali:~#
 
Let me explain the output:
This system has 1 physical WiFi adapters.
  1. Designated name: phy#1
  2. Device names: wlan0
  3. Interface Index: 4. Usually as per connected ports (which can be an USB port).
  4. Type: Managed. Type specifies the operational mode of the wireless devices. managed means the device is a WiFi station or client that connects to an access point.

Read the rest of it here: Connect to WiFi network from command line in Linux
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