Is it possible to save multiple wifi networks on retropie?

HairDyeGuy

Can retropie hold multiple wifi keys?
I'm almost done building my handheld, and I wanted to know if retropie can remember wifi networks so if I go to my friend's place I could easily connect to the network.
Currently I don't have usb access so connecting a keyboard each time I move would be a pain.
If it's possible, is it an automatic save or do I need to do something manually?
One final question I have is can I write multiple wifi details on wifikeyfile.txt so I could make retropie learn multiple networks at once? I mean something like this:

ssid="NETWORK_1"
psk="NETWORK_PASSWORD"
ssid="NETWORK_2"
psk="NETWORK_PASSWORD"
ssid="NETWORK_3"
psk="NETWORK_PASSWORD"

Thanks in advance

mitu

You can't write multiple entries in wifikeyfile.txt, but you can use the alternate Wi-Fi configuration file - as described in the docs.
The wpa_supplicant.conf file accepts multiple entries, so if you want to configure multiple networks, just add them to the file and they'll be automatically configured in RetroPie:

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

# RETROPIE CONFIG START
network={
    ssid="NETWORK_1"
    psk="password_for_network1"
}

network={
    ssid="NETWORK_2"
    psk="password_for_network2"
}
# RETROPIE CONFIG END

You only need to configure this once for each new Wi-Fi network, the Wi-Fi settings will be saved.

HairDyeGuy

@mitu Awesome!
I do so via editing the .txt file or via the command terminal?
EDIT: I just realized that windows probably can't open .conf files which means I'll need the terminal.
Is there a way to do copy paste from windows to the terminal? I ask because everything I found on Google didn't work

mitu

@hairdyeguy said in Is it possible to save multiple wifi networks on retropie?:

EDIT: I just realized that windows probably can't open .conf files which means I'll need the terminal.

You can edit the .conf file with Notepad, even if the extension is .conf, it's still a simple text file. Make sure you save it with the .conf extension and not with .conf.txt.

HairDyeGuy

@mitu Oh cool.
Then I just copy and paste the template you sent one after another as many as the numbers of networks I want to add, fill in the details, and press save, right?
(Also, is there a default setting? I know how to fill some of the fields, but the second one for example is gibberish to me

mitu

@hairdyeguy said in Is it possible to save multiple wifi networks on retropie?:

hen I just copy and paste the template you sent one after another as many as the numbers of networks I want to add, fill in the details, and press save, right?

Yes, that's the gist of it.

(Also, is there a default setting? I know how to fill some of the fields, but the second one for example is gibberish to me

No, there's no default Wi-Fi network configured in RetroPie/Raspbian. The configuration fragment referenced in the doc page is all you need to configure the Wi-Fi - you just need to fill in the network name and the password to access it. I'm not sure what you mean by 'gibberish', can you be more specific ?

HairDyeGuy

@mitu What I meant to ask is is there a default "answer" to each field to put in case I don't know the answer. For example, I'm not sure if and what to write after update_config= or ctrl_interface= as opposed to country=

mitu

country needs to be set to your country code (see here for the official list). Everything else should left as-is, you just need to fill out the network name/password entries as needed.

HairDyeGuy

@mitu Awesome!
I did so and booted up the device. It didn't recognize the network until I used the wifikey file. Just to be clear, when you said boot partition, you meant the extra "drive" that appears on windows and can be accessed on windows, not the folder inside retropie, right?

mitu

@hairdyeguy said in Is it possible to save multiple wifi networks on retropie?:

Just to be clear, when you said boot partition, you meant the extra "drive" that appears on windows and can be accessed on windows, not the folder inside retropie, right?

Yes, that one.