How to Enable Wireless Lan in Ubuntu

This page contains a set of bash commands that will enable a wireless interface on ubuntu 11.10.

List all network interfaces with wireless extensions

sudo iwconfig

Enable wlan0 interface

sudo ip link set wlan0 up

Scan for available access point

sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

Know the hex equivalent of the wifi password

wpa_passphrase MY-WIFI xyz1234

Which will output:

network={
    ssid="MY-WIFI"
    #psk="xyz1234"
    psk=abcdefghijkl12345678
    }

Take note of the psk
Edit network interfaces config and add wlan0

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Using DHCP

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid MY-WIFI
wpa-psk abcdefghijkl12345678

Using Static IP

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
address 192.168.0.10
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid MY-WIFI
wpa-ap-scan 1
wpa-proto RSN
wpa-pairwise CCMP
wpa-group CCMP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk abcdefghijkl12345678

Restart networking service

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

List all modules and look for your wireless card

lsmod

To enable wireless module upon boot time, edit /etc/default/grub file to look like something below:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="insmod rt1234ef"