Solved How does everyone manage wifi on their laptops?

[Greg Fitzgerald]

I have been stuck on Windows on my work laptop for a long time, and that is finally coming to a end. So I want to go with FreeBSD. Sadly I know nothing about wifi on FreeBSD. I mostly use it on my desktop. What is the easiest way to manage wifi locations on a laptop? Is there a good way to swap in and out of wifi spots on the cli? Should I plan on installing something like mate where it will have a gui option? What are you guys doing for this. Thanks.

 

[linux->bsd]

What are you guys doing for this.

wpa_supplicant() with different priority values for each network. If I move outside of one network's range, I'm automatically switched to another. If I want to temporarily switch to a lower-priority network, I manually edit wpa_supplicant.conf(), then run wpa_cli reconfigure.

 

[shepper]

The GhostBSD maintainer has written a network manager and it is included in a GhostBSD default install. The GhostBSD utility is available as a FreeBSD port: net-mgmt/networkmgr. Another option is net-mgmt/wifimgr. There are screen shots of the utilities at the projects web sites.

 

[Greg Fitzgerald]

Thank you both. I think wpa_supplicant with priorities is what I want to do. When I run wpa_cli reconfigure will that reconnect me to whatever wifi network that is in my priority list if my laptop was left on?

 

[linux->bsd]

When I run wpa_cli reconfigure will that reconnect me to whatever wifi network that is in my priority list if my laptop was left on?

The wpa_cli() manpage has several different options. You'll want experiment and find the one that works best for you. I'm not typing this on my laptop, so I can't copy-paste, but:
wpa_cli list_networks shows my networks in order of priority.
wpa_cli disconnect disconnects from the active connection.
wpa_cli set_network allows you to change network priorities.
wpa_cli reconnect re-establishes a connection.