Issue setting up wifi on Raspberry Pi 2 (Model B)
1I asked this in the Raspberry Pi community on Stack Exchange, but I figured I'd ask it here since (hopefully) any responses here won't be said snippily.
Today, after having my Raspberry Pi sitting in a drawer for close to a month, I decided to finally set it up.
Unfortunately, the screen which I bought for it arrived broken, so I am having to do everything through my laptop and Mobaxterm.
When I set up the initial internet connection using an ethernet cable (I was going to borrow someones, but then I found a humongous purple one from a long time ago), it set up fine.
Unfortunately, its setting up the wifi setup which gives me the issue.(For what it's worth, my Wifi adapter is an Edimax EW-7811Un)
I tried several methods of setting it up, but none of them have helped.
First, I followed this guide to set up up using text editing, I triple checked my SSID and Password, but to no avail.
Then, I decided to try the Wifi setup offered by Raspberry Pi (because I didn't think of it right away), but it didn't prove useful. Left clicking it told me that no wireless interfaces were found, and it did not show me my router,right clicking it and click settings did not seem to help either, as SSID did not show my router.
Finally, I finally decided to try this method, but that didn't make any improvements over what I had already.
So as it stands now, this is what I get when I check the wlan0 setup.As you can tell, it does not have an IP address, but a mixture of letters and numbers. 
At this point I'm not really sure what to try next. Suggestions?
- 7 comments, 18 replies
- Comment
can you turn off ip6 and enable ip4?
@hallmike @froodyfrog My first thought as well. That 'mix of letters and numbers' is an IP address, but it's IPv6 and not IPv4. fe80 is local, so that's something.
@hallmike
I probably could, if I had instructions. My mind it confused from other stuff right now.
@brhfl @hallmike
Back to square one. When I check ifconfig wlan0, I get the same results as the one in the picture.
Would either of you suggest I try this?
@FroodyFrog Yes, looks like that disables IPv6 across the board. Since your eth0 seems to be working (presumably you're getting an IPv4 on that interface?), you could change the
allin that line towlan0. Whatever you try, you can always delete it later! Note (since I don't know your level of expertise here) that when they refer to typing^Othey meanCtrl-O, and AFAIK that saves in nano but does not quit, I thinkCtrl-Xquits. Note too that this answer above the one you linked to does the same thing, just not in an interactive editor.@brhfl
Ironically, I had that link first, but then switched it.
As far as my expertise, this is only my 2nd day dealing with it, so, it's a learning process.
Now that I'm actually trying it though, it just occurred to me that the biggest issue with it is that /etc/sysctl.d is a directory, and not a file.
@FroodyFrog Ordinarily I run BSD (and, worse, cygwin) more than Linux, it's been a while since I tinkered with configuring Ubuntu, so bear with me… Not sure why those answers act as though sysctl.d is a file (well, technically every directory in a Unixlike system is 'a file', but that's not really a helpful semantic tidbit here), but here we can see the basic hierarchy that sysctl uses to apply settings. Namely, end it in
.confand weight it with a 'heavy' number as a prefix to ensure it's applied. This seems particularly relevant:@FroodyFrog sysctl manpage
You know you can plug it into a monitor right? :)
The fe80 is an ipv6 local address... like the old loopback 127.0.0.1 in ipv4 which makes me think its never connecting to your wifi, can you check your wifi router and see if it's kicking any errors (or do you use normal ol mfg firmware, which usually doesn't have this option).
@thismyusername
Well yeah, but for the main use I found for it so far, a monitor wouldn't be practical. (Meh would notice if there was a random monitor hanging in their warehouse ;) )
@FroodyFrog oh sneaky!
I just got a suggestion for something, though to confuse myself more, I'll reflash everything and try it.
Here's hoping it works (or at least doesn't make my laptop explode)
Slight improvement.
Network detection works, however, even after entering the router password, it refuses to connect to Wi-Fi.
I want to say it's because it knows that if it tries disconnecting from Ethernet, then I'll lose VNC, however...
Still working on getting a screen for it so that I could avoid the Ethernet cable, but I don't currently have an HDMI cable, and like I said, the screen I got came with a defect (oh, and no guide on setup)
Until I figure this out, looks like the Meh warehouse is safe (well compared to if I got my Rasp Pi in there)
Also research dhcp.conf.
@walarney From what I understand based upon a short string of characters, the version of Linux which I am running on my Rasp Pi doesn't use dhcp the same way that it used to, unless I decide to mess around with it. However, that would break stuff...
@walarney
This <- Wow, talk about a vague URL identification on my part.
@FroodyFrog I don't have it in front of me, and I'm kind of a Linux n00b. I had some issues setting up a static IP on the wireless interface. There are lots of walk-throughs describing edits to /etc/network/interfaces, but that wasn't working. I found a post somewhere that said that method was outdated, and the changes needed to be made in dhcp.conf and wpa-supplicant.conf instead. That worked for me with Raspbian. That was about 6 months ago, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but hopefully Google can fill those in for you.
Also check out this utility: https://learn.adafruit.com/the-adafruit-raspberry-pi-finder/finding-and-connecting
Good news, bad news time.
Good news - I identified the problem. I can connect my Rasp Pi to my phone if I turn it into a hotspot using WPA2
Bad news - I don't want to change my routers security to WPA2 at this time for various reasons.
@FroodyFrog Do you have any other spare wifi adapters to try out?
Also, I'd really like to know why you don't want to use WPA2.
@dashcloud
A spare one shouldn't really matter. It connects perfectly with WEP when I try it with some other devices.
@FroodyFrog um... you do know WEP has been broken security wise for 15 years right? Just a heads up.
@thismyusername
I know, but...
@thismyusername WEP was born broken…
Update: I got Wi-Fi set up with WEP.
This thread helped me. (If you're too lazy to go and read it, I had to go to wpa_supplicant.conf, remove the quotation marks from around the wep_key, save, then reboot.
I saw something like this earlier, but when I did it, I never rebooted.
Now the can commence,although I should probably move my Ethernet cable first, I keep on tripping over it...