How to connect to wifi on boot?

[john1923]

Hi, I am running ubuntu 11.10 server, on a home WPA PSK wifi network.

To connect to the wifi network I type these commands.

sudo ifconfig ra0 up 
sudo wpa_passphrase NetworkName "Password" > ~/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
sudo wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i ra0 -c ~/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
sudo dhcpcd ra0

However I want my server to connect to wifi without me logging in.

Is there a "right" way of doing this?

I have tried putting those commands into

/etc/rc.local

If I do this, the first line works propperly, and ra0 is up, but the rest of the commands don't seem to work.

Also as the server boots it spends 60 seconds waiting for network info. Ideally I would connect to the wifi network at this point?

Any Ideas?

Thank you in advance.

[Habitual]

make an .sh script with

#!/bin/bash
ifconfig ra0 up 
wpa_passphrase NetworkName "Password" > /absolute/path/to/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i ra0 -c /absolute/path/to/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
dhcpcd ra0

chmod 700 the same script.
Use same script in /etc/rc.local

HTH

[john1923]

Thanks Habitual,

It still isn't working...

here's the script
/home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh

#!/bin/bash
ifconfig ra0 up
wpa_passphrase network "password" > /home/john/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i ra0 -c /home/john/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf
dhcpcd ra0
echo " run on $(date)" >> /home/john/WifiSetup/log.txt

Here's my /etc/rc.local

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

# Connect To Wifi John 22Apr11
sh /home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh
# End Connect to wifi

exit 0

I put the echo date command into the script, so I could see when it runs. It is not running automatically.

but it works if I type

sudo sh /home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh

Thank you for your help.

[Habitual]

/home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh has a "#!/bin/bash" line, then the "sh" in /etc/rc.local

sh /home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh

should not be necessary.

Try this to get a Log file of the script's running (only a a temp measure)...

crontab -e

/home/john/WifiSetup/ConnectWifi.sh >> /home/john/WifiSetup/log.txt 2>&1

save and reboot and someone smarter than I will be along to help if that still doesn't work.

Try adding /absolute/path/to/wpa_supplicant and /absolute/path/to/wpa_passphrase in the .sh file

[john1923]

lol, I like the cron command.

Turn the server on then it will connect after midnight

I can see why most servers have an Ethernet connection, but there must be a way of doing it by wifi...

For the moment I have turned it on, manually connected it to wifi and logged out. It's pretty low power so leaving it on all the time should be OK, but it would be nice to have this fixed so I can turn it off and on whenever I want.

[doogs]

Hi, I am running ubuntu 11.10 server, on a home WPA PSK wifi network.

To connect to the wifi network I type these commands.

sudo ifconfig ra0 up 
sudo wpa_passphrase NetworkName "Password" > ~/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
sudo wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i ra0 -c ~/WifiSetup/wpa_supplicant.conf 
sudo dhcpcd ra0

However I want my server to connect to wifi without me logging in.

Is there a "right" way of doing this?

I have tried putting those commands into

/etc/rc.local

If I do this, the first line works propperly, and ra0 is up, but the rest of the commands don't seem to work.

Also as the server boots it spends 60 seconds waiting for network info. Ideally I would connect to the wifi network at this point?

Any Ideas?

Thank you in advance.

Hi,
I'm no expert by any means but, I edited the etc/network/interfaces files following the guide here:

http://prupert.co.uk/2010/06/25/how-to-configure-wireless-wifi-networking-in-ubuntu-via-the-command-line-cli/

My headless server now connects to my local network via wifi when the server is booted without logging in. Only thing I need to figure out now is how to get the wifi interface to switch off automatically if the server is shutdown!

Also, I commented out the lines regarding the loopback interface as well (this seemed to be a problem for me, since I don't have any ethernet connection between the server and my router).

Hope this is of help.

Cheers,
Doogs

[SeijiSensei]

Replace "wpa_passphrase" and "wpa_supplicant" with "/usr/bin/wpa_passphrase" and "/sbin/wpa_supplicant" in case there's a path problem.

[haqking]

I just put it in

/etc/network/interfaces

set it as auto wlan0 (or whatever the iface is)

And thats it for me anyways.

Peace

[chili555]

I just put it in

/etc/network/interfaces

set it as auto wlan0 (or whatever the iface is)

And thats it for me anyways.

Peace

That's what I'd do, too.

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
    wpa-ssid NetworkName
    wpa-psk Password

No rc.local, no scripts, no fuss.

[haqking]

That's what I'd do, too.

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
    wpa-ssid NetworkName
    wpa-psk Password

No rc.local, no scripts, no fuss.

+1

Totally agree