For desktop systems you can setup Wi-Fi via the GUI easily. So in this guide, we’ll just talk about how to connect to Wi-Fi via command line. For the Ubuntu/Debian server we can use NetworkManager to setup Wi-Fi.

Scan for Wi-Fi Networks

$ nmcli d wifi list
IN-USE  SSID                          MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SEC
        VIM                           Infra  2     195 Mbit/s  92      ▂▄▆█  WPA
        Wesion                        Infra  7     260 Mbit/s  84      ▂▄▆█  WPA
        VIM_5G                        Infra  161   405 Mbit/s  84      ▂▄▆█  WPA
        HP-HOTSPOT-48-LaserJet M1218  Infra  7     54 Mbit/s   69      ▂▄▆_  WPA
        ChinaNet-xjCH                 Infra  13    270 Mbit/s  67      ▂▄▆_  WPA
        BRGCN_GUEST                   Infra  1     405 Mbit/s  64      ▂▄▆_  WPA
        BRGCN                         Infra  1     405 Mbit/s  62      ▂▄▆_  WPA

Find a Wi-Fi network that you can connect to.

Create an hashed pre-computed PSK key with wpa_passphrase

To avoid storing human readable passwords there is an handy tool coming with wpa_supplicant called wpa_passphrase.

Use wpa_passphrase your_ssid your_password to create a 256-bit PSK passphrase from your_ssid and your_password.

khadas@Khadas:~$ wpa_passphrase your_ssid your_password
network={
  ssid="your_ssid"  
  #psk="your_password"
  psk=6d5324610d3627ab4f97b80cf22b742996d82c022b283a874e88d083a299734c
}

The new password is now a hashed passphrase.

6d5324610d3627ab4f97b80cf22b742996d82c022b283a874e88d083a299734c

Tip: Replace the your_ssid & your_password with your SSID and password.

Connect to a Wi-Fi Network

$ sudo nmcli d wifi connect your_ssid password 6d5324610d3627ab4f97b80cf22b742996d82c022b283a874e88d083a299734c wep-key-type key
Device 'wlan0' successfully activated with '206ab399-3822-4652-ba4c-64847af0bce9'.

Tip: Replace the your_ssid & 6d5324610d3627ab4f97b80cf22b742996d82c022b283a874e88d083a299734c with your SSID and passphrase.

Disconnect from a Wi-Fi Network

$ sudo nmcli d disconnect wlan0
Device 'wlan0' successfully disconnected.