Ubuntu – Difference between essid, bssid and ssid in commands
If I am correct, ESS is the union of a set of BSS’s. ESSID and BSSID are just their IDs respectively.
How can I tell if a wireless network has essid, bssid or ssid?
What differences are between usages of essid, bssid and ssid? When to use which?
Which one should apply to the wireless network created by my router in my apartment: ESSID, BSSID, or SSID?
Some examples of commands that use ESSID, BSSID or SSID as their arguments. But I am not sure why they use one not the others.
- The manpage of iwconfig says
NAME iwconfig - configure a wireless network interface SYNOPSIS iwconfig [interface] iwconfig interface [essid X] [nwid N] [mode M] [freq F] [channel C][sens S ][ap A ][nick NN ] [rate R] [rts RT] [frag FT] [txpower T] [enc E] What is bssid in linux [power P] [retry R] [modu M] [commit] iwconfig --help iwconfig --version bssid set preferred BSSID for an SSID SYNOPSIS wpa_passphrase [ ssid ] [ passphrase ] bssid = This value can be found using iwconfig(8). essid = This value can be found using iwconfig(8). Best Answer
My understanding is that ESSID is the name of the access point, which can be changed, but BSSID is numeric ID of the access point (something like MAC address of the router). For instance, on my college campus we have many different access points with same name, but BSSIDs are different for each router. You can list networks with their respective ESSID and BSSID with
Or for cleaner output you can do nmcli -f SSID,BSSID dev wifi .
Also with iwlist , for example:
Related Solutions
Ubuntu – Centrino Wireless-N 1000 poor performance on N Network
Well Yes I have another solution, perhaps it could fits to your problem or not. I tried the same solution disabling the N network mode, it works but it turns out not to work under N wireless network.
In my case, I was under a WEP encrypted wireless network, this was the reason why I was navigating to slow, with N mode enabled.
Just enable your N wireless mode and change your security wireless network to WPA2 , it will resolve your problem.
Ubuntu – Connection drops out regularly with a Ralink RT2800
I actually have the same card so I know where you’re coming from. I haven’t had any issues surprisingly, as I did in the past.
My suggestion would be to try compiling the compat-wireless drivers from source. You can download from: Linux Wireless — Stable
I recommend using compat-wireless-3.5.4-1-snpc
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential tar jvxf compat-wireless-3.5.4-1-snpc.tar.bz2 cd compat-wireless-3.5.4-1-snpc ./scripts/driver-select rt2x00 make sudo make install If that doesn’t work I’d try updating the kernel to the latest. I’m on 3.2.0.31.34 without any problems, and I did not need to compile the drivers.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo reboot now EnismanY / linux_wifi.md
This provides details including, frequency of WiFi, BSSID, SSID, encryption (for WPA2-PSK, should see pairwise_cipher and group_cipher are CCMP ) MAC address and IP address.
There are several options for turning off WiFi, what works will be dependent on how the system is configured. Assuming the WiFi interface is wlan0 , options are:
sudo ip link set wlan0 down - First list all devices using:
0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no 1: hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no Again, there are multiple options:
sudo ip link set wlan0 up Alternatively, assuming the number of the device has been ascertained using rfkill list ( 0 in the example below) execute:
Display information about the WiFi interface
Assuming WiFi interface is wlan0 :
Finding WiFi link quality & signal level
iwconfig wlan0 | grep -i --color "Quality\|Signal" The numbers reported for quality will be WiFi driver dependent.
Continous update of link quality
The file /proc/net/wireless contains information about the WiFi signal. This can be viewed continually using a combination of the cat and watch commands.
watch -n 1 cat /proc/net/wireless Alternatively, the ncurses-based monitoring application wavemon can be used. This will likely need installing, which in Debian based distributions can be achieved using:
To use the application simply run:
Setting a prefered WiFi band
It is possible to set a preferred WiFi band, ie 2.5 or 5 GHz. This may be desirable to avoid interference from other devices or to improve range/speed. Remember, 2.5 GHz has the better range and 5 GHz the better speed.
First check the network interface is capable of using both bands. There are at least two methods to determine this.
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan | grep -i "Frequency\|Address\|ESSID" THe output will be similar to:
Cell 01 - Address: ab:12:cd:34:ef:56 Frequency:2.412 GHz ESSID:"DESIRED SSID" Cell 02 - Address: gh:78:ij:90:kl:12 Frequency:5.70 GHz ESSID:"DESIRED SSID" . iw list | grep -i "Frequencies\|MHz\|GHz" In the output look for the section(s) entitles Frequencies, which will be similar to:
Frequencies: * 5180 MHz [36] (22.0 dBm) (no IR) * 5200 MHz [40] (22.0 dBm) (no IR) * 5220 MHz [44] (22.0 dBm) (no IR) * 5240 MHz [48] (22.0 dBm) (no IR) . The frequencies are the centre of the band.
Both the SSID and BSSID are required, the BSSID is the MAC address for a particular band of the access point. To obtain this information, enter the wpa command line interface by running the following, where wlan0 is the name of the wireless network interface:
Once in the iteractive mode, indicated by:
run the following two commands, letting the first command complete execution (indicated by a return of the > prompt) before running the second.
The output will be similar to:
bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid ab:12:cd:34:ef:56 2412 -79 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] DESIRED SSID gh:78:ij:90:kl:12 5700 -84 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] DESIRED SSID . This shows the desired SSID and the frequencies, 2.5 and 5 GHz, along with their respective BSSIDs.
Quit the interactive mode by entering q .
To modify the settings
Kill network-manager and wpa_supplicant:
sudo service network-manager stop && sudo killall wpa_supplicant On the Raspberry Pi (August 2020) networking this can be achieved using:
sudo service networking stop && sudo killall wpa_supplicant If /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf does not exist, create the file using:
sudo wpa_passphrase > /etc/wpa_supplicant must be replaced with the SSID of the WiFi network. A blank prompt will be received awaiting the user to enter the password for the WiFi. Once this has been done edit the file using:
sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf Add the following to the file.
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant #settings for an AP using preshared keys, PSK network= < ssid=ssid scan_ssid=1 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK #psk==Password psk="Passkey generated by wpa_passphrase" bssid=gh:78:ij:90:kl:12 #the important part >#settings for an open AP. if you use this then don't use the above settings network=
ssid and psk will be those entered when using the wpa_passphrase command.
Delete the commented line containing the password, and ensure the bssid matches that of the access point and the desired band you wish to connect to, ie 2.5 or 5 GHz.
Now start the daemon in the background by running:
sudo wpa_supplicant -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0 If this fails, debug problems by running:
sudo wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0 -d Unsure about the dhclient section (next two commands)
After authentication, tell dhclient to release the current lease ie IP address, it has from the server:
Request a dynamic IPv4 address (DHCP):
Finally, reconfigure the interface with:
wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure Verify whether WiFi has successfully connected and the correct band is being used by executing:
sudo wpa_cli -i wlan0 status If the ip_address is not populated, the device has not connected to the network, check that thr password and ESSID are correct.
What is UUID of a wifi network?
In its manpage and google, I don’t find the differences between UUID, ESSID and BSSID of a network. What are their differences? Thanks.
3 Answers 3
The ESSID is what is transmitted and what you «see» this is what you will normally connect to for example «Joe’s Wi-Fi». As you can guess, I can have five networks called «Joe’s Wi-Fi».
The BSSID is the MAC address associated with the Access Point (AP). It is hardware set and should be unique. So of those five «Joe’s Wi-Fi» networks, each AP will have it’s own BSSID. You can alter your AP’s MAC address.
From that first result: «ESSID is another way to identify the network.» which is a bit vague; however, hopefully the diagram will help:
UUID is just a unique ID number. There are not supposed two of the same value.
@Tim the only time I’ve seen UUID used in networking is with /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts/ifcfg-ethX .
The ESSID of a wifi network is its human-friendly name. It usually identifies the network in order to distinguish it from other wifi networks that may be in range, but it’s up to the administrator to choose a meaningful and unique name or not.
The BSSID of a wifi network is its machine-friendly name. It is normally unique (but may not be if the wifi provider is malicious).
See Wikipedia and SailorCire’s answer for more information.
The UUID mentioned here is not a concept related to wifi networks. It’s a concept of Network Manager, the program that you’re using. Network Manager assigns a unique machine-friendly name (in the form of a UUID) to each connection. A connection, in this context, is a set of configuration parameters that describe the network (its name, its credentials, etc.). Connections also have human-friendly names; the UUID is used to tell apart connections that have the same human-friendly names.