How to connect WiFi using Python?


Python is a popular programming language used in a wide range of applications, including network programming. In this article, we will explore how to connect to a WiFi network using Python.

Connecting to a WiFi network using Python can be useful in situations where you need to automate the process of joining a network, such as in a headless system or in a situation where manual intervention is not possible. Python provides several libraries that can be used to interact with WiFi networks, and we will explore some of them in this article.

We will start by looking at the basic steps involved in connecting to a WiFi network, such as scanning for available networks, selecting a network to connect to, and providing authentication credentials. We will then explore some popular libraries that can be used to automate these steps, such as the wifi and wpa_supplicant libraries.

By the end of this article, you will have a good understanding of how to use Python to connect to a WiFi network and be able to apply this knowledge to automate the process of joining a network in your own projects.

Using the wifi library

Below are the steps mentioned which we can use to use the wifi library available to us.

  • Install the wifi library using pip.

  • Import the wifi library in your Python script.

  • Use the Cell class to scan for available WiFi networks.

  • Select the network you want to connect to and provide authentication credentials using the Scheme class.

  • Use the Cell.connect() method to connect to the network.

Consider the code shown below.

Example

import wifi
import time

# scan for available WiFi networks
wifi_scanner = wifi.Cell.all('wlan0')
available_networks = [cell.ssid for cell in wifi_scanner]

# print available networks
print(f"Available Networks: {available_networks}")

# connect to a WiFi network
network_ssid = input("Enter network SSID: ")
network_pass = input("Enter network password: ")

for cell in wifi_scanner:
	if cell.ssid == network_ssid:
    	scheme = wifi.Scheme.for_cell('wlan0', cell.ssid, cell, network_pass)
    	scheme.save()
    	scheme.activate()
    	print(f"Connected to network: {network_ssid}")
    	break
else:
	print(f"Unable to find network: {network_ssid}")

In the code above, we first import the wifi library and the time library. We then use the Cell.all() method to scan for available WiFi networks and store the SSIDs of these networks in the available_networks list.

Next, we prompt the user to enter the SSID and password for the network they wish to connect to.

We then loop through the list of available networks and check if the SSID entered by the user matches any of the available networks. If a match is found, we create a Scheme object with the SSID and password and activate the connection using the activate() method. If no match is found, we inform the user that the network was not found.

Finally, we print a message to inform the user that the connection has been established.

Conclusion

In conclusion, connecting to WiFi using Python can be done through a variety of approaches. In this article, we discussed the approach where we are making use of the wifi module present in python.

Overall, using Python to connect to WiFi networks provides developers with an additional tool for building more robust and flexible applications.

Updated on: 03-Aug-2023

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