wireless - How to connect to WiFi from the command line?

Other posts seems to be addressing more complicated network connection issues from the command line.

The Unity panel Network indicator/button doesn't respond too well sometimes - it keeps trying to connect to a network even when i click on "disconnect", stuff like that.

So I want to go command line for the control. I don't like GUIs anyway.

Is there not some simple command line tool which can do something like the following?

wifi connect MyNetworkNameA
wifi disconnect
wifi connect MyNetworkNameB

I think you want to keep using managed interface (by NetworkManager). nmcli is a command‐line tool for controlling NetworkManager.

• To see list of saved connections, use ()

  
  
  

  nmcli c
  




• To see list of available WiFi hotspots ()

  
  
  

  nmcli d wifi list
  

  
  
  

  or:

  
  
  
  

  sudo iwlist  scanning
  




• To see list of interfaces ()

  
  
  

  ifconfig -a
  

Just change , , in the following commands to reflect your setup. If WiFi info already saved, easier way using name of connection as it was saved in NetworkManager.

Ubuntu 16.04

##disconnect
nmcli d disconnect 

##connect
nmcli d connect 

Another way:

##disconnect
nmcli c down 

##connect
nmcli c up 

Ubuntu 15.10 & previous

##disconnect
nmcli d disconnect iface 

##connect
nmcli d wifi connect  password  iface 

Another way:

##disconnect:
nmcli c down id 

##connect:
nmcli c up id 

If your password isn't automatically recognized type this:

nmcli -a c up 

Reference: man nmcli