Wireless access through command line interface

Question

Is there a CLI command or program that will list available wireless access points? I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 on a laptop and sometimes I boot straight into the CLI instead of a GUI. I know iwconfig can configure a connection but will not list available AP's.

Answer 1

How about this (warning: I haven't tested this):

1. Use iwconfig to query what the wireless interface is named
2. iwlist eth1 scanning, scan the wireless interface "eth1"

3. Connect via

   iwconfig eth1 essid "My Awesome Hotspot"

Side-note: You'll probably need sufficient privs to run these.

Answer 2

iwlist INTERFACE_NAME scanning

$ iwlist wlan0 scanning

Answer 3

iwlist device scan

wicd also provides a curses-based interface which allows you to easily connect to the AP of your choice.

Answer 4

If you happen to use wpa_supplicant, wpa_cli comes in very handy. You run:

wpa_cli scan

And then:

wpa_cli scan_results

This produces a list of APs with some additional information.

Answer 5

If NetworkManager is running then you can use nm-tool, and read everything from the line containing Wireless Access Points all the way to the next empty line.

Additionally, you can use dbus-send to communicate with it over D-Bus, but there is no straightforward way to just get all access points visible to all wireless interfaces.