How to connect to Google Starbucks wifi using i3 and Arch Linux
Last updated October 20, 2017
If you are new to i3 and find yourself having trouble connecting to wifi networks in new places, you have come to the right article. One easy solution would simply be to switch to some desktop environment, configure wifi, and then log back into i3. However, there are better ways to do it.
I was recently at a Starbucks and couldn't connect to the open Google Wifi
network using sudo wifi-menu
. Coming from Gnome Desktop, I have been having to learn how to do things the i3 way. Simple things like connecting to new wifi networks require new approaches.
If you install the dialog
package, you can use wifi-menu
to view available networks and select which network you want to join. This didn't work when I recently tried to join a Google Startbucks wifi network. Luckily, there is a a simple CLI tool for NetworkManager
called nmcli
that you can use to join networks.
Here is how to scan networks with nmcli
:
[brian@archthinkpad ~]$ nmcli d wifi list
* SSID MODE CHAN RATE SIGNAL BARS SECURITY
-- Infra 11 54 Mbit/s 94 โโโโ WPA2 802.1X
Google Starbucks Infra 11 54 Mbit/s 89 โโโโ --
Google Starbucks Infra 48 54 Mbit/s 87 โโโโ --
-- Infra 48 54 Mbit/s 87 โโโโ WPA2 802.1X
-- Infra 1 54 Mbit/s 75 โโโ_ --
Einstein Bros Bagels Infra 1 54 Mbit/s 75 โโโ_ --
-- Infra 1 54 Mbit/s 75 โโโ_ WPA1 WPA2
-- Infra 1 54 Mbit/s 72 โโโ_ WPA2
Einstein Bros Bagels Infra 161 54 Mbit/s 60 โโโ_ --
-- Infra 161 54 Mbit/s 59 โโโ_ WPA1 WPA2
xfinitywifi Infra 153 54 Mbit/s 40 โโ__ --
XFINITY Infra 153 54 Mbit/s 40 โโ__ WPA2 802.1X
CoxWiFi Infra 153 54 Mbit/s 39 โโ__ --
CableWiFi Infra 153 54 Mbit/s 39 โโ__ --
XFINITY Infra 11 54 Mbit/s 27 โ___ WPA2 802.1X
ZM7JQ Infra 6 54 Mbit/s 24 โ___ WPA2
And here is how to connect to the Google Starbucks
network.
[brian@archthinkpad ~]$ nmcli dev wifi connect Google\ Starbucks
Device 'wlp3s0' successfully activated with 'da3af242-4707-42f0-81c8-6f8b9dc1a0f7'.
If there is a password required to join the network, simply use the -a
flag at the end of the command and you will be prompted to enter the password:
[brian@archthinkpad ~]$ nmcli dev wifi connect some_ssid -a
Password:
Device 'wlp3s0' successfully activated with 'da3af242-4707-42f0-81c8-6f8b9dc1a0f7'.
You can read more about nmcli
on the Arch Wiki Network Manager article.