How to connect headless linux server to internet without network manager

Pratyush_Udhani7 — Tue, 27 May 2025 10:10:04 +0000

In a headless installation you can connect to wifi networks using network-manager, iwctl etc. But wait first you need to install these, and for that you need internet.

I was stuck in this egg-chicken problem myself and then I got to know about Netplan and wpa_supplicant.

In this guide, we'll walk through two methods to connect your Linux server to Wi-Fi using only built-in tools: Netplan and wpa_supplicant.

Method 1: Netplan

Netplan is Ubuntu’s default network configuration system. You can define Wi-Fi networks in a YAML file and let the system manage them.

Step 1: Edit Netplan configuration file

sudo vim /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml

The file name may vary. It will look something like this:

network:
  version: 2
  wifis:
    # wifi interface
    wlo1:
      dhcp4: true
      access-points:
        "SSID_1":
          auth:
            key-management: "psk"
            password: "password"
        "SSID_2":
          auth:
            key-management: "psk"
            password: "password2"

Replace wlo1 with your own wifi interface. Use ip link show to find your interface.

Step 2: Apply the changes

sudo netplan apply

This will:

Connect to the Wi-Fi
Request a DHCP IP address
Set up the default route

Step 3: Test your connection

ping google.com

Method 2: wpa_supplicant

wpa_supplicant is the backend used by most Linux systems to handle WPA/WPA2 Wi-Fi authentication. It connects your Wi-Fi interface to a protected wireless network using a configuration file.

Step 1: Generate a Secure Wi-Fi Config

wpa_passphrase "YourSSID" "YourPassword" > wpa.conf

This generated a config for your wifi. If you don't know the SSID, you can easily check it through some other device.

Step 2: Create the Configuration File

sudo vim /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Copy the contents of wpa.conf to this file.

Step 3: Start wpa_supplicant

sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Replace wlan0 with your own wifi interface. Use ip link show to find your interface.

Step 4: Test your connection

ping google.com

Troubleshooting

Make sure the wifi interface is up by running sudo ip link set wlo1 down sudo ip link set wlo1 up.
wpa_supplicant might interfere by creating p2p-dev-wlan0 and I found it useful to kill it's instances to resolve those conflicts. sudo killall wpa_supplicant.

DEV Community: Pratyush_Udhani7

How to connect headless linux server to internet without network manager

Method 1: Netplan

Method 2: wpa_supplicant