IWLIST(8)

✨ IWLIST 💖

okay so bestie, real talk — iwlist is a section 8 system admin tool from the Linux Programmer's Manual, and it's literally your go-to for snooping on wireless interfaces. it's giving "iwconfig's nosy little sister" and we're obsessed. let's get into it 🫶

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💖 SYNOPSIS 💖

like, here's the whole mood board of how you run it:

iwlist [interface] scanning
iwlist [interface] frequency
iwlist [interface] rate
iwlist [interface] keys
iwlist [interface] power
iwlist [interface] txpower
iwlist [interface] retry
iwlist [interface] event
iwlist [interface] auth
iwlist [interface] wpakeys
iwlist [interface] genie
iwlist [interface] modulation
iwlist --help
iwlist --version

periodt. that's the whole thing. ✨

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so iwlist is the tool you use to pull extra info from a wireless network interface — the juicy stuff that iwconfig(8) doesn't show you. the main argument picks which category of info you want, and then iwlist spills all the tea in detailed form for that category, including the stuff iwconfig(8) already showed you. it's giving "why not both" energy 💅

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🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• scan[ning] — bestie, this one shows you the list of Access Points and Ad-Hoc cells in range, plus (if you're lucky) a whole bunch of extra info about them: ESSID, Quality, Frequency, Mode, the works. the type of info you actually get back depends on what your card supports, no cap.

⚠️ heads up: triggering a scan is a privileged operation (root only, fr fr), and normal users can only read left-over scan results. by default, how the scan happens (the scope) depends on your card and your card settings.

this command takes optional arguments, BUT lowkey most drivers will ignore them 🙈. the essid option lets you scan on a specific ESSID — and with some card/driver combos, that lets you see hidden networks 👀. the last option does not trigger a scan, it just reads the left-over scan results. iconic.

• freq[uency]/channel — shows the list of available frequencies on the device and the number of defined channels. ngl, here's the catch: usually the driver returns the total number of channels but only the frequencies available in your present locale, so there's no one-to-one mapping between frequencies displayed and channel numbers. the math is not mathing on purpose 💀
• rate/bit[rate] — lists the bit-rates your device supports. slay.
• keys/enc[ryption] — lists the encryption key sizes supported and all the encryption keys set in the device. 🔐
• power — lists all the various Power Management attributes and modes of the device. ⚡
• txpower — lists all the various Transmit Powers available on the device. 🔥
• retry — lists the transmit retry limits and retry lifetime on the device. 🔁
• ap/accesspoint/peers — gives you the list of Access Points in range, plus optionally the quality of the link to them. BUT — and I cannot stress this enough — this feature is obsolete and now deprecated in favor of scanning support (that's the scan[ning] one above), and most drivers don't support it anymore. rip to a real one 😭. some drivers may use this command to return a specific list of Peers or Access Points, like the list of Peers associated/registered with the card — see your driver documentation for the details, iykyk.
• event — lists the wireless events supported by the device. 🦋
• auth — lists the WPA authentication parameters currently set (the original says "curently," and honestly, we respect the spelling journey 💅).
• wpa[keys] — lists all the WPA encryption keys set in the device. 🔑
• genie — lists the Generic Information Elements set in the device (used for WPA support). 🧚
• modu[lation] — lists the modulations supported by the device and the modulations currently enabled. 🌈
• --version — displays the version of the tools, plus the recommended and current Wireless Extensions version for the tool and the various wireless interfaces. ⭐
• --help — displays a short help message. the bare minimum and we love that for us 🎀

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🗂️ FILES 🗂️

• /proc/net/wireless

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

iwconfig(8), iwspy(8), iwevent(8), iwpriv(8), wireless(7).

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okay that's the whole page, bestie — you're officially an iwlist main character now 👑💜

💜 bye bestie 💜 — this was wireless-tools, dated 13 April 2006 (yes, she's an elder icon and we stan her anyway) 🎀✨