RFKILL(8)

✨ rfkill(8) — the system administration girlies' guide to wireless vibes ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to rfkill(8), a manual page for the tool for enabling and disabling wireless devices 💖 it lives in section 8, aka the system administration section, which is basically the VIP lounge of man pages. let's get into it 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

rfkill [options] [command] [ID|type ...]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

rfkill lists, enabling and disabling wireless devices. (yes we know, the grammar is a little off, we love it anyway 🫶)

The command "list" output format is deprecated and maintained for backward compatibility only. the new output format is the default when no command is specified or when the option --output is used. 💅

the default output is subject to change!! so whenever possible, you should avoid using default outputs in your scripts. always explicitly define expected columns by using the --output option together with a columns list in environments where a stable output is required. no cap, this one matters fr fr 😭

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -J, --json — use JSON output format 🧚
• -n, --noheadings — do not print a header line, we're going bare-faced today
• -o, --output — specify which output columns to print. use --help to get a list of available columns 👑
• --output-all — output all available columns. all of them. every single one. main character energy 🌈
• -r, --raw — use the raw output format ✨
• -h, --help — display help text and exit 💖
• -V, --version — display version and exit 🎀

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG=all — enables libsmartcols debug output 🔍
• LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG_PADDING=on — use visible padding characters ✨
• LIBSMARTCOLS_JSON=compact|lines — controls JSON output format when using --json. supported values are compact for JSON output with minimal whitespace, and lines for JSON Lines format (one JSON object per line). if unset or set to any other value, pretty-printed JSON is used 💅

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🔥 COMMANDS 🔥

• help — display help text and exit 💖
• event — listen for rfkill events and display them on stdout 👀 it's giving surveillance but make it cute
• list [id|type ...] — list the current state of all available devices. the command output format is deprecated, see the DESCRIPTION section ⚠️ it is a good idea to check with list command id or type scope is appropriate before setting block or unblock. special all type string will match everything. use of multiple ID or type arguments is supported. possible types are all, {wlan | wifi}, bluetooth, {uwb | ultrawideband}, wimax, wwan, gps, fm, nfc 🦋
• block id|type [...] — disable the corresponding device 🚫
• unblock id|type [...] — enable the corresponding device ✅ but listen: if the device is hard-blocked, for example via a hardware switch, it will remain unavailable though it is now soft-unblocked. so close bestie, so close 😭
• toggle id|type [...] — enable or disable the corresponding device. flip-flop behavior, we love a chaotic queen 💅

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🌸 EXAMPLE 🌸

rfkill --output ID,TYPE
rfkill block all
rfkill unblock wlan
rfkill block bluetooth uwb wimax wwan gps fm nfc

look at that last one blocking basically the whole alphabet of wireless. iconic. periodt. 👑

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

rfkill was originally written by Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> and Marcel Holtmann <marcel@holtmann.org>. the code has been later modified by Sami Kerola <kerolasa@iki.fi> and Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> for the util-linux project 🫶

this manual page was written by Darren Salt <linux@youmustbejoking.demon.co.uk> for the Debian project (and may be used by others) 🎀

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

powertop(8), systemd-rfkill(8), Linux kernel documentation <https://docs.kernel.org/driver-api/rfkill.html>

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🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

for bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

(be nice, they're doing their best 💖)

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🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

the rfkill command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

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okay bestie that's the whole page, you ate that 🍓 this was util-linux 2.42.4, dated 2026-09-21, and the manual name is RFKILL(8) in case you were wondering — love you, go unblock your wlan 💅✨💖