interfaces-wifi(5)

💖 NAME 💖

interfaces-wifi — the WiFi vocabulary for the interfaces(5) file format. That's the whole name section, and honestly? It ate. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so: Wi-Fi is the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols, and it's a commonly used wireless networking standard. The options below are how you configure Wi-Fi client interfaces, bestie.

WPA-secured networks are managed using wpa_supplicant(8), while insecure networks are managed directly with iwconfig(8). That's the vibe check on how the back end works.

🌈 WIFI-RELATED OPTIONS 🌈

• wifi-config-path path — Denotes the absolute path to a wpa_supplicant configuration file. If no path is given, /run/wpa_supplicant.<interface>.conf will be used for a temporary configuration file. Also, heads up: this option may not be used with other configuration options — no combo moves, periodt.
• wifi-ssid ssid — The SSID the Wi-Fi client should connect to. Literally the network name, iykyk.
• wifi-psk psk — The passphrase for connecting to the Wi-Fi network. If unset, the client will connect without WPA2 encryption. So yeah, set it if you want WPA2 in the mix.

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

A typical setup may involve connecting to a home and work network. To achieve this, we can define a pair of virtual interfaces called wifi-home and wifi-work, which connect to their respective wifi networks:

iface wifi-home
     use dhcp
     wifi-ssid HomeNetwork
     wifi-psk ExamplePassphrase

iface wifi-work
     use dhcp
     wifi-config-path /etc/network/wpa-work.conf

The virtual interfaces can be used with ifup and ifdown:

# ifup wlan0=wifi-home
# ifdown wlan0
# ifup wlan0=wifi-work

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• iwconfig(8)
• wpa_supplicant(8)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org> — main character energy, fr fr. 💖

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okay bye bestie — this was interfaces-wifi(5) from the File Formats Manual, dated 2026-05-10, and yes she slayed 💅✨