Raspberry Pi OS

Begin by installing the latest full or lite version of Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit) on your system using the steps outlined on this Raspberry Pi Imager learn guide page. If you intend to have the Raspberry Pi installed somewhere out of the way and wish to connect to it remotely, then be sure to enable SSH and configure your public key in the customization menu of the Raspberry Pi Imager. It's also convenient to configure the WiFi network details inside of the Pi Imager app so that the Pi will automatically connect to your WiFi when it boots up.

After you boot up the Pi for the first time on a fresh Raspberry Pi OS image, run these commands to update the software preloaded in the system.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

If these commands fail with network errors, use the WiFi settings in the OS to connect to your network and then try again.

Helpful Commands

While dealing with networks in a Linux based system there are some terminal commands that are helpful to inspect and configure different aspects of the network connections.

ip addr

The ip addr command outputs a list of network adapters with their current state and assigned IP address. This is helpful for determining which network interfaces are active and whether external USB adapters are being recognized by the system.

ip addr

ip addr

The output can look intimidating but there are a few key pieces of information that are easy to spot once you know where to look.

In the following screenshot, colored highlights have been added to each of the 3 different network interfaces:

• Yellow for lo: loopback or localhost. Not relevant for externally connected devices.
• Green for eth0: Ethernet, disconnected in the screenshot as indicated by the red "DOWN".
• Pink for wlan0 WiFi, connected in the screenshot as indicated by green "UP" and assigned IP address.

nmcli

The network manager can be accessed using the nmcli utility. It can do several common tasks like scanning for networks, connecting and disconnecting, creating and managing WiFi access points and more.

There are a handful of commands relevant to this guide below. The nmcli documentation contains more comprehensive information.

Turn on or off the WiFi radio.

sudo nmcli radio wifi off
sudo nmcli radio wifi on

sudo nmcli radio wifi off
sudo nmcli radio wifi on

Print a list of all of the saved network connections. This includes any currently connected networks as well as networks that have been saved but aren't currently connected, and any WiFi access points that have been created.

nmcli connection show

nmcli connection show

Example output:

Scan for networks and print information about the nearby networks.

nmcli device wifi list

nmcli device wifi list

Connect to a WiFi network. Use the list command above to find the specific SSID to use. Fill in the SSID and password for your own network in the following command to connect to the network.

sudo nmcli device wifi connect <Network SSID> password <Network Password>
# Example:
sudo nmcli device wifi connect MyWifiNetowrk password SuperS3cret

sudo nmcli device wifi connect <Network SSID> password <Network Password>
# Example:
sudo nmcli device wifi connect MyWifiNetowrk password SuperS3cret

Enable or disable a saved connection. Enabling will connect to the network or start broadcasting the AP, disabling will disconnect or stop broadcasting AP.

sudo nmcli connection down <Connection Name>
sudo nmcli connection up <Connection Name>
# Examples:
sudo nmcli connection down Hotspot
sudo nmcli connection up MyWifiNetowrk

sudo nmcli connection down <Connection Name>
sudo nmcli connection up <Connection Name>
# Examples:
sudo nmcli connection down Hotspot
sudo nmcli connection up MyWifiNetowrk

Delete a saved connection or WiFi hotspot access point.

sudo nmcli connection delete <Connection Name>
# Examples:
sudo nmcli connection delete Hotspot
sudo nmcli connection delete MyWifiNetwork

sudo nmcli connection delete <Connection Name>
# Examples:
sudo nmcli connection delete Hotspot
sudo nmcli connection delete MyWifiNetwork