How to reset the WiFi configuration in Raspbian

Question

The WiFi-related configurations are stored in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file. For example, if WPS (WiFi protected setup) is succeeded by using wpa_cli command, the configuration information, such as SSID, passphrase, etc. will be stored inside it.

Now, what I want to do is to clear all the wifi configuration information inside /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. And what I am considering now is:

1.delete all the content in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file
2.write the original information into it
3.reboot the system

But, is there any other way to reset the configuration file?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there isn't a really convenient way of doing this - that is why I would recommend to always have a backup of a .conf-files original content.

Instead of deleting and re-writing the content of the file, you could just swap it altogether and than restart just the networking service:

sudo cp /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.backup /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo service networking restart

This way, you don't have to reboot.

Another way I thought of was reinstalling the wpasupplicant-package (sudp apt-get install --reinstall wpasupplicant). However, this didn't reset an altered wpa_supplicant.conf-file and is therefore not solving the problem.