How to automatically connect to Wifi on boot for Pi2?

Question

I am using a Pi2 with Wifi USB Wifi Adapter. Every time I boot, I have to connect to the wifi manually by providing the password. Is there any way Pi2 can automatically connect to the wifi on boot?

When I boot up, only Wifi Dongle is connected, not the ethernet cable.

My settings are as follows.

/etc/network/interfaces

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.40.201
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.40.0
broadcast 192.168.40.255
gateway 192.168.40.1
dns-nameservers 4.2.2.2

auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

auto wlan1
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid="Cisco09589"
psk="password"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

OS and Kernel version

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /proc/version Linux version 4.1.19-v7+ (dc4@dc4-XPS13-9333) (gcc version 4.9.3 (crosstool-NG crosstool-ng-1.22.0-88-g8460611) ) #858 SMP Tue Mar 15 15:56:00 GMT 2016

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Raspbian Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 8.0 (jessie) Release: 8.0 Codename: jessie

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /etc/os-release PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)" NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux" VERSION_ID="8" VERSION="8 (jessie)" ID=raspbian ID_LIKE=debian HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/" SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums" BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

Answer 1

I had the same issue when I once configured the wifi through the preinstalled GUI. There was no other chance than reinstall raspian and make the whole configuration with /etc/network/interfaces.

I would recommend not using the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf but instead put your wifi password and name into your configuration directly.

This would be my configuration with a static IP address to easily connect with your PI via ssh:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
    address 192.168.0.198
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.0.1
    broadcast 192.168.1.255
    gateway 192.168.0.1
    wpa-ssid "WIFINAME"
    wpa-psk "WIFIPASSWD"

Don't forget to restart your wifi, after you made your changes!

Answer 2

Your current wlan0 configuration requires manual IP setup (like for eth0 in this file or via ifconfig like command). I hope you are using DHCP, so replace string "iface wlan0 inet manual" with "iface wlan0 inet dhcp".

Answer 3

I tried half a dozen tutorials using wpa-supplicant, iw and /etc/network/interfaces. But they all did not work for me. Probably because they did not describe at all what they were doing. So I always ran into a point where it did not work and there was no error message nor any way to find out the source of the problem.

Finally I simply tried installing the default network-manager. Which happens to be the gnome-network-manager but without any GUI part.

So in short, the solution is:

sudo apt --no-install-recommends install network-manager
nmcli connection add ifname wlan0 type wifi ssid <Your-SSID>
nmcli connection edit wifi-wlan0

While editing the config file you have to set WPA-PSK and the plain text password:

nmcli> goto wifi
nmcli 802-11-wireless> set mode infrastructure 
nmcli 802-11-wireless> back 
nmcli> goto wifi-sec 
nmcli 802-11-wireless-security> set key-mgmt wpa-psk 
nmcli 802-11-wireless-security> set psk <your-plain-text-password>
nmcli 802-11-wireless-security> save 
nmcli 802-11-wireless-security> quit 

After that reboot and enjoy! The network-manager will take care of everything!

If it complains about permission, the recommended way seems to be to modify/overwrite the policykit rules from /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy. I gave up on that and used sudo instead. If anybody knows a clean way to do it, tell us please!

Here is a very good guide, but it's in german: https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/NetworkManager/NetworkManager_ohne_GUI/