Manual Wi-Fi Connection Guide

An interactive guide to connecting to Wi-Fi without a network manager.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following information and access. This guide assumes you are starting from a basic command prompt and need to establish a network connection to proceed.

• Your Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and password.
• Physical access to the device with a connected monitor and keyboard.
• The `wpa_supplicant` package, which is typically installed by default on most Linux distributions.

Connection Steps

Follow these steps sequentially. Each step provides a command that you can copy and paste directly into your terminal. This process will take you from the initial prompt to a fully networked device.

Step 1: Identify Your Wi-Fi Interface

Find the name of your wireless network device. It usually starts with `wlan` or `wlp`. Note this name for the following steps.

ip link show

Step 2: Activate the Wi-Fi Interface

Enable the wireless device. Replace `wlan0` with the interface name you found in the previous step.

ip link set wlan0 up

Step 3: Generate Network Configuration

Create a configuration file with your Wi-Fi credentials. **Remember to replace `YOUR_SSID` and `YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD`** with your actual network name and password.

wpa_passphrase "YOUR_SSID" "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD" > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Step 4: Start the Connection Process

Run the `wpa_supplicant` tool in the background to manage the Wi-Fi connection using the file you just created. Remember to use your correct interface name instead of `wlan0`.

wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Step 5: Obtain an IP Address

Request an IP address from your network's DHCP server. This allows your device to communicate on the network.

dhclient wlan0

Step 6: Verify Connection

Check if your device successfully obtained an IP address. Look for an `inet` entry in the output.

ip addr show wlan0

Important Considerations

Connection is Not Persistent

This manual connection is temporary and will be lost upon reboot. For a permanent setup, you must configure your system's network scripts (e.g., `/etc/network/interfaces` on Debian/Ubuntu or using `systemd-networkd`).

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues, check kernel messages with `dmesg` or system logs with `journalctl -xe` for errors related to your Wi-Fi device or `wpa_supplicant`.