Command line WIFI (SOLVED)

[doctormoreau]

Okay guys and gals. I've spent the morning digging through docs and other threads and I just cannot get my wifi working. I've got an Atheros 9271 dongle which shows up with ip a but I've tried editing the interfaces file and I've tried editing the WPA Supplicant file and nothing works.

Here's what I'm running:
Dell Mini 110
Atheros 9271 usb dongle
Debian 8
wireless network "i will not grill you a cheese"
secured with a WPA pass phrase

What am I missing here? I'm seeing conflicting info on every site I look at. Surely there must be a relatively simple way to just connect to wifi. Is there perhaps a network manager for CLI?

[doctormoreau]

I've tried setting up the info in wpa_supplicant.conf and running the command

wpa_supplicant -B -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dwext

but all I get is:

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid Argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid Argument

[GarryRicketson]

Is there perhaps a network manager for CLI?

Network manager runs just fine from the command line.

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nmcli

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 man nmcli 

You can also type :

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nmtui

at the command line,to get a easier to use GUI.
On Jessie, some people have done better using "WICD"
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#Wicd
Are you sure you have the nonfree firmware you need for this "Atheros 9271" dongle to work ?
https://wiki.debian.org/iwlwifi

[doctormoreau]

yes, I installed the atheros-firmware package like the Debian documentation said to

[doctormoreau]

okay. I've got wicd-curses installed but it shows no networks. I went into Preferences and it showed my wireless interface as blank, I tried putting in wlan0 (since that's what ip a lists it as...but I can't press F10 to accept the changes. wicd-curses refuses to accept F10 to accept ANY changes anywhere in its settings screens.

[doctormoreau]

okay, tried running nmcli, it's not installed. tried installing it, "unable to locate package nmcli"

[GarryRicketson]

okay, tried running nmcli, it's not installed. tried installing it, "unable to locate package nmcli"

Well, it sounds like you need to install either "wicd" , or "networkmanager".
What does the out put of

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#iwconfig

show ?

[doctormoreau]

After playing around with the wpa_supplicant.conf file and ALL kinds of other things that never seemed to work I found this simple advice

Just edit /etc/network/interfaces and write:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid <ssid>
wpa-psk <password>
After that write and close file and use command:

dhclient wlan0

Then I restarted the machine, ran iwconfig, and bam, there was my SSID with everything logged in and ready to go. The Debian manual pages are quite wrong, this tiny bit of info (along with making sure wpa_supplicant is installed) is the way to go. Anything else more complicated and it starts to NOT work, lol

[GarryRicketson]

Let's back up a little bit,
If you want to use the

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nmcli

,command,
then you need to install "network manager",
Did you read, any of the above links ?, they explain it all pretty clearly. I wonder , because you response was so fast, I find it hard to believe you read all of that material that quick.

[GarryRicketson]

The Debian manual pages are quite wrong,

Well I don't agree, that is what I followed, when I first started using Debian, and had no problem, but any way glad you got it working. Please edit the subject line on your first post, marking this as solved.

[doctormoreau]

I was under the belief that Network Manager was a GUI application. I did not relaize that nmcli was part of the package.

I followed the Debian manual word for word to get my wifi running and what they said did not work. The info I found (extremely similar mind you) did Hopefully this might be of help to any others having the same problem.

[GarryRicketson]

Ok, thanks