Docs › Developing › Setting up a Wi-Fi connection

Setting up a Wi-Fi connection

To connect your device to the cloud, you must use either Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Pelion Edge officially supports connection over Ethernet. However, if you don't have access to Ethernet or an Ethernet cable, you can connect your device to your home Wi-Fi router, access the terminal and manually configure the Wi-Fi settings.

Note: This is not an officially supported feature. It has been tested with consumer or standard Wi-Fi networks and not with corporate networks or mobile hotspots. We recommend you connect your Raspberry Pi with an Ethernet cable to a network with Internet access.

Prerequisites

Before you can start this process, you need:

Pelion Edge 2.0+ installed on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (having followed the quick start guide).
Internet access.
Router supporting DHCP.
Ethernet cable or access point, or Wi-Fi enabled router.

Creating and configuring wpa_supplicant

Follow these steps to create and configure wpa_supplicant to set up a Wi-Fi connection:

Shell or serial into the gateway. There is only one login user by default, root. The default password is set to redmbed.
Create a wpa_supplicant directory:
```
mkdir /etc/wpa_supplicant
```
Use any editor of your preference to edit this file. This example uses nano:
```
nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
```

Copy one of the sections according to your Wi-Fi network settings:

# If the Wi-Fi network is password protected then copy the following content and replace <ssid> and <passphrase> with your network credentials.
network={
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    ssid="<ssid>"
    psk="<passphrase>"
}

or:

# If the Wi-Fi network is open and doesn't require password, then copy the following content and replace <ssid> with your Wi-Fi name.
network={
    key_mgmt=NONE
    ssid="<ssid>"
}

Save and exit.
With nano, run the commands:
```
Ctrl+X, Y, Enter
```
Run this command to enable the wpa_supplicant service and configure systemd to start this service on boot:
```
systemctl enable --now wpa_supplicant@wlan0
```
It takes some time for maestro dhcp_client to acquire an IP address. Run this command to know if your Pi has acquired an IP on wlan0 interface:
```
ifconfig wlan0
```

Ping an external IP address to test your connectivity:

ping 8.8.8.8

If successful, you should see something like this -

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=3.10 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=4.27 ms
^C
--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 2ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 3.097/3.682/4.268/0.588 ms

Troubleshooting

Make sure maestro dhcp_client is enabled on wlan0 interface. By default, we have configured both interfaces - eth0 and wlan0 with maestro.
wpa_supplicant Arch Linux Wiki.
ip Linux man page.

Documentation

Setting up a Wi-Fi connection

Prerequisites

Creating and configuring wpa_supplicant

Troubleshooting