Connecting To WiFi Networks

The Omega comes ready with a command-line tool called wifisetup that makes it easy to connect your Omega to WiFi networks. This article will cover what wifisetup is, as well as how you can use it to connect your Omega to a WiFi network near you.

Using wifisetup

To begin setting up your connection to the Internet, enter wifisetup in a terminal, and you’ll see the following output:

root@Omega-2757:/# wifisetup
Onion Omega Wifi Setup

Select from the following:
1) Scan for Wifi networks
2) Type network info
q) Exit

Selection:

You can enter 1, and your Omega will scan for available networks:

Selection: 1
Scanning for wifi networks...

Select Wifi network:
1) BYB
2) studio sixteen
3) EG Energy
4) mayaaa
5) Authentic
6) OnionWiFi
7) Orpheus
8) Omega-18C2

Selection:

Enter your selection and you will be prompted for a password if required. Your network authentication type will be automatically detected in the scan:

Selection: 6
Network: OnionWiFi
Authentication type: WPA2PSK
Enter password:

Enter your password, and hit enter. Your Omega’s network adapter will restart and attempt to connect to the new network.

Since the network adapter is restarting, the Omega’s AP will go down and be inaccessible during this period, but it will come back up in roughly 30 seconds.

The Omega’s Network Manager
The Omega’s network manager will attempt to the networks in range that are configured on your Omega. For example, if you have three configured networks (school, home, friend’s house) and you’re currently at your friend’s house, the network manager will immediately attempt to connect to that network.

On the other hand, if you have multiple configured networks in range the Omega will attempt to connect to the network with the highest priority. Priority is defined as most recently configured networks having the lowest priority. This means that adding a network configuration immediately assigns it as the lowest priority.

Entering Network Info Manually

Alternatively, you can choose to type in the network info yourself by entering 2 as your selection.

Selection: 2
Enter network name:

Enter your network’s name (SSID) and hit enter

Selection: 2
Enter network name: OnionWiFi

Select network authentication type:
1) WPA2
2) WPA
3) WEP
4) None

Selection:

Select the network authentication type

Selection: 2
Enter network name: OnionWiFi

Select network authentication type:
1) WPA2
2) WPA
3) WEP
4) None

Selection: 1
Enter password:

Enter your password, and hit enter. Your Omega’s network adapter will restart, causing the AP to go down for roughly 30 seconds. Once your network adapter is back up, it will attempt to connect to the network.

The Omega’s Network Manager
The Omega’s network manager will attempt to the networks in range that are configured on your Omega. For example, if you have three configured networks (school, home, friend’s house) and you’re currently at your friend’s house, the network manager will immediately attempt to connect to that network.

On the other hand, if you have multiple configured networks in range the Omega will attempt to connect to the network with the highest priority. Priority is defined as most recently configured networks having the lowest priority. This means that adding a network configuration immediately assigns it as the lowest priority.

Using the wifisetup Command-Line Arguments

You can also use wifisetup in the command line to directly add configurations without having to go through the user input method. To begin lets show the available usage for wifisetup with the following command:

wifisetup -h

Going through the available commands we see that we can add new networks, edit current networks, remove current networks, change the priority of networks, list the networks, and list the info about a specific network.

Adding or Editing a Network

To add or edit a network use the following:

For example to add a network named myNetwork enter the following:

wifisetup add -ssid myNetwork -encr psk2 -password mynetworkpassword

And if you wanted to edit the network after adding it, you would enter:

wifisetup edit -ssid myNetwork -encr psk2 -password myNewNetworkPasswordWithCaps

Removing a Network

The command for removing a network takes in the ssid as the only parameter:

wifisetup remove -ssid <SSID>

From the above example, if you were to remove myNetwork from my list of configured networks you would enter the following

wifisetup remove -ssid myNetwork

Note if you have multiple networks with the same SSID, this command would remove the highest priority network from your list of configured networks.

Changing a Network’s Priority

The network priority determines the order in which the Omega’s network manager will attempt to connect, assuming that the network is within range. A network of higher priority will have a lower number. For example, your highest priority network has priority 1, and your Omega will attempt to connect to that network first if it is available.

You can use wifisetup priority -ssid <SSID> -move <up|down> to change the priority of a specified network.

For example, to move the priority of myNetwork up you would enter:

wifisetup priority -ssid myNetwork -move up

and to move it down you would enter:

wifisetup priority -ssid myNetwork -move down

Disabling the WiFi Client Interface

To disable the Omega’s WiFi client interface, run the following commands:

uci set wireless.sta.disabled='1'
uci commit wireless
wifi

Note that the Omega’s WiFi Access Point will still be active. In this case, the Omega will be hosting a WiFi network, but will not attempt to connect to other networks.

To re-enable the WiFi client interface, run the same commands but instead set the wireless.sta.disabled option back to 0.

Disabling the WiFi Radio Completely

The Omega’s entire WiFi radio can be disabled by running these commands:

uci set wireless.radio0.disabled='1'
uci commit wireless
wifi

This will entirely disable the WiFi radio, including both the WiFi AP and client interface. Users may want to do this to take advantage of the power savings that come from disabling the relatively power-hungry WiFi radio.

To re-enable the WiFi radio, run the same commands but instead set the wireless.radio0.disabled option back to 0.