Paul - The Programmer

Wireless tools is a package of command line tools for configure wireless network.

With the help of wireless tools, it is no need to install the graphical network configuration tools, such as the wifi-radar.

The wireless tools consists with ifrename, iwconfig, iwgetid and iwlist.

To connect to a wireless network, we only need the help of iwlist.

iwlist can list all the nearby wireless nework access point and their addional information.

$ sudo iwlist ath0 scan 
ath0      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:25:86:49:16:F4
                    ESSID:"TP-LINK_4916F4"
                    Mode:Master
                    Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
                    Quality=21/70  Signal level=-74 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100
                    Extra:ath_ie=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Now, we get the available access point. To access to the wireless network, we need to configure the network interface.

For Debian, the network interface configuration file is /etc/network/interfaces.

To use the interface ath0 to access the acccess point 'TP-LINK_4916F4', the configuration show like below:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
	# wireless-* options are implemented by the wireless-tools package
	wireless-mode managed
	wireless-essid TP-LINK_4916F4
	wireless-key1 s:xxxxxxxx

Connect to the wireless network by restarting the networking init script.

# /etc/init.d/networking restart