Raspberry Pi Wireless config

Here's working wireless configuration I use to connect my Raspberry Pis with USB wifi dongles to my home network.

I've been using Realtek RTL8188CUS and Ralink RT5370 based devices rated for 150Mbps.

Dongles based on Ralink chip have been working flawlessly, but I have experienced two issues with the Realtek-based device. The adapter just doesn't work in AP mode, and if there's no network activity it will drop in power saving mode that can only be resumed packets are sent from the host.

In practical terms the host becomes unavailable for anyone who attempts to initiate a remote connection, however, this can be mitigated by creating a cron job that pings the router every minute.

This configuration that doesn't rely on GUI or NetworkManager starting up, assumes that wpasupplicant package is installed and wireless adapter is recognized by the system as wlan0.

Add the following to /etc/network/interfaces

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf as such.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
        ssid="AP Name"
        psk="AP Secret"
        proto=RSN
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        pairwise=CCMP
        auth_alg=OPEN
}
back to top