How do I find out the name of the SSID I'm connected to from the command line?

Question

Neither iwconfig nor iwlist seem to be able to do this for me.

score 166 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 27 '13 at 22:44

166

iwgetid provides the ssid

iwgetid -r gives just the name.

In a Bash script try something like myssid=$(iwgetid -r) to put it in a variable

edited Dec 27 '13 at 22:44

Wouter

713

answered Dec 27 '13 at 21:26

Peter Apps

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10
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5

Thanks! Looks much better than the commonly recommended iw/iwlan+sed/grep solutions. – Rob W Mar 19 '14 at 12:37

mikewhatever · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-24T00:50:03.513

36

Run nm-tool | grep \*. That should show just the line with the SSID you are connected to.

Edit: The nm-tool utility had ceased to exist, so in 16.04 and newer releases, please use any of the methods suggested by my esteemed colleagues below.

For example: nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi | egrep '^yes' | cut -d\' -f2 works well.

edited Feb 24 '18 at 00:50

answered Mar 29 '12 at 15:19

mikewhatever

32,638

Thanks that's exactly what I needed. To get just the name:nm-tool |grep --only-matching '*[^ ][^:]*' |sed 's/^*//' – John Baber-Lucero Mar 29 '12 at 16:09
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nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi is easier to parse. The ssid is unfortunately encapsulated in some useless quotes though. – geirha Mar 29 '12 at 16:48
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Or: nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi | egrep '^yes' | cut -d\' -f2 (which will work as long as the SSID doesn't contain any ' characters) – Scott Severance Mar 30 '12 at 07:43
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Ubuntu 16.10: $ nm-tool | grep \* No command 'nm-tool' found, did you mean: Command 'dm-tool' from package 'lightdm' (main) nm-tool: command not found Scott's command works though – Ads20000 Jan 16 '17 at 13:21
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$ nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi | egrep '^yes' | cut -d\: -f2 is the command I just used on Ubuntu 17.04. – Ron Thompson Jan 04 '18 at 23:42

score 32 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 30 '12 at 09:02

32

Although the question has already been answered, the iwconfig tool does display the ESSID of the currently connected Wifi network. Perhaps it does not work with connections managed through NetworkManager but it works with interfaces managed through ifup/ifdown:

iwconfig | grep wlan0

lists:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"ahoi"

answered Mar 30 '12 at 09:02

oddfellow

3,021

1

Typing iwconfig only can do the purpose too :-) thanks for sharing this command :-) – Suhaib Mar 30 '13 at 18:22

score 18 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 25 '16 at 20:24

18

None of the prior answers worked for me unfortunately. I was however able to get the details via

$ sudo iw dev wlan0 info

and got

Interface wlan0
    ifindex 5
    wdev 0x1
    addr **:**:*:*:*:*
    ssid *****
    type AP
    wiphy 0
    channel 2 (2417 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2417 MHz

answered Jul 25 '16 at 20:24

blotto

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See this answer to extract the SSID from the output. – Matthias Braun May 21 '19 at 15:29

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 12 '16 at 16:16

9

You can also use the iw tool (from the iw package) to obtain the WiFi link parameters which includes the currently associated SSID - e.g for wlan0:

iw dev wlan0 link

answered Jul 12 '16 at 16:16

Pierz

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score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 08 '19 at 08:55

6

nmcli -t -f name connection show --active

shows the same output without listing all available SSIDs in vicinity so without delay. if more network interfaces are available and active can be parsed by interface name like so:

nmcli -t -f name,device connection show --active | grep wlp3s0 | cut -d\: -f1

answered Nov 08 '19 at 08:55

Dawid Chemloul

61

Useful for users who use networkmanager (like me) – Marian Minar Jul 23 '20 at 21:48

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 24 '22 at 15:41

3

simply use this command to get only the ssid "NAME"

iw dev wlan0 info | grep ssid | awk '{print $2}'

Where wlan0 is the interface for your Wi-Fi card. Check it in ifconfig or iwconfig.

The output is only the "ssid name" of the network you connected...

edited Jan 24 '22 at 15:41

manu_romero_411

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answered Jun 04 '20 at 06:27

Devalla Bharath

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using sudo to get this, especially for a script, is silly. – RichieHH Jan 06 '21 at 02:56

How do I find out the name of the SSID I'm connected to from the command line?

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