WIRELESS(8)                 System Manager's Manual                WIRELESS(8)

NAME
     wireless - scan for and configure wireless networks

SYNOPSIS
     wireless [file]

DESCRIPTION
     wireless scans for and configures wireless networks on OpenBSD.  It uses
     ifconfig(8) to do most of the heavy lifting and basically just interprets
     and applies scan results.

     wireless is deprecated since OpenBSD 6.4.  Use the -join option of
     ifconfig(8) instead to configure auto-joined wireless networks.

USAGE
     Just run wireless once to scan for known wireless LANs and configure the
     earliest network in the configuration file, for example:

           $ wireless
           ... wait a bit for scanning and configuration ...
           $ dhclient iwn0

     The result of the scan can also be written to a file.  The format of the
     file is described in CONFIGURATION STATEMENTS below.

     If necessary (see the CONFIGURATION OVERVIEW section below), wireless
     will notify wpa_supplicant(8) of the newly established connection by
     calling

           wpa_cli reassoc

CONFIGURATION OVERVIEW
     This is an example configuration file:

           device iwn0
           dump /var/db/wireless/aps
           verbose

           open   freifunk.paderborn.net
           802.1x eduroam
           wpa    "home network" thisismypassword

     There are three kinds of networks, open, wpa and 802.1x.  All of these
     get an SSID as their first parameter.  wpa gets the password or hex key
     as the second parameter.  SSIDs and passwords which contain spaces can be
     enclosed in single or double quotes.  Regular string quoting rules apply:

           wpa "Hello\"foo" 'I\'m a password!'

     You can include files with the include statement:

           include /home/user/.wireless.conf

     Macros can be set and used like this:

           mypw = "foobar! 1234#$"
           hexkey = 0x092876e79594ae7beda40dd150d17fa215e51f22cb990f9ec640a267c96fbedf
           wpa nw1 $mypw
           wpa nw2 $hexkey

     The priority of a network depends on the order of networks in the
     configuration file.  The earlier a network appears, the higher is its
     priority.  If an SSID is visible multiple times (such as in campus
     networks), the access point with the strongest RSSI is chosen.

CONFIGURATION STATEMENTS
     This section outlines the available configuration statements.

     debug | verbose
             Enables debugging or verbose mode.  See DIAGNOSTICS below for
             details.

             Both debug and verbose can be specified at the same time.

     device name
             Use name as the device to configure.

     dump path
             Dump a list of configured networks to path.  It contains one line
             for each access point with the following information:

                   BSSID RSSI encrypted? known? SSID..

             There is no default path, which means that if no dump statement
             is given, the list of networks is not written out.

     include path
             Includes the file path at the point where the include statement
             appears in the file.

     open nwid
             Defines an unencrypted network.

     wpa nwid password|hexkey
             Defines a WPA2 network.

     802.1x nwid
             Defines a WPA2 network that uses IEEE 802.1x as the key
             management scheme.  This requires using wpa_supplicant(8) to
             handle the actual key management.

FILES
     /etc/wireless.conf  configuration file

DIAGNOSTICS
     If the keyword verbose is given in the configuration file, the name of
     the network that is being configured will be printed to the standard
     error stream.

     The keyword debug enables behaviour that helps debugging.  Its meaning
     will change without prior notice, so it should not be used outside of
     development.

SEE ALSO
     ifconfig(8), wpa_passphrase(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

AUTHORS
     o   Gregor Best <gbe@unobtanium.de>

     o   jggimi (pledging)

     o   spedru (improvements to the wpa_supplicant(8) interface)

     o   Klemens Nanni <kn@openbsd.org> (improvements to the manpage)

OpenBSD 6.4                    October 31, 2018                    OpenBSD 6.4