Connect to WiFi network using Mac Terminal

Question

Every time I try to find out how to do this, I find out how to do it on a linux, and it doesn't transfer. How do I connect to a WiFi network using Mac Terminal Bash?

Solution 1

As of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X v10.6.x) and possibly earlier, you can do:

networksetup -setairportnetwork $INTERFACE $SSID $PASSWORD

Where...

• $INTERFACE is the "enX" style identifier for your AirPort card (usually en1, but it's en0 on MacBook Airs and en2 on Mac Pros, and can vary for other reasons as well)
• $SSID is your network name, such as "Simon's SSID". Enclose it in quotes if it contains spaces.
• $PASSWORD is your WEP, WPA-PSK, or WPA2-PSK password.

If you look at the man page or help/usage statement for networksetup you'll see that it has other AirPort-related subcommand for getting or setting the power state (AirPort card on/off), and for managing the Preferred Networks list and 802.1X profiles (if your network uses 802.1X, such as a WPA Enterprise or WPA2 Enterprise network would).

Solution 2

Figured it out:

sudo airport -A

Solution 3

Here is a little guide on using airport in the Command Line

Apparently you can use

$ airport 

as a command. I would try

$ airport -help

and see if it brings up some options.

This answer is outdated. Please ignore it

Comments

[Simon Sheehan]

Put it into quotations. Like "Simon's SSID". So the command may be something like: airport -x "Simon's SSID"

[User19]

@Simon what would the -x do? @nathang why would it change? How do I find what the correct location on my computer would be?

[Spiff]

How in the world did this answer, which has no hope of working, get upvotes?

[slhck]

The guide is from 2007, just saying.

[Simon Sheehan]

-x was just to represent any variable. I had a friend try the command, and he told me that some options came up. Clearly I was mistaken, I apologize.

[Luxspes]

there is no "-A" option in airport

[Luigi Ranghetti]

Probably should gave have been s … which is the key next to a on a keyboard.