How to manage available wireless network priority?

Question

I'd like to move up and down available wireless access points, setting priorities as we can do in Microsoft Windows. I can't remember to have ever succeeded in this since using network-manager. Maybe something with conf files is possible...

I'm not interested in different network managers.

Answer 1

WiFi Radar is a Python/PyGTK2 utility for managing WiFi profiles. It enables you to scan for available networks and create profiles for your preferred networks. At boot time, running WiFi Radar will automatically scan for an available preferred network and connect to it. You can drag and drop your preferred networks to arrange the profile priority. ¹

Install WiFi Radar, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command below.

sudo apt-get install wifi-radar

To run it,

sudo wifi-radar

WiFi Radar has a new version 2.0 it can be downloaded from their website. Or download it from Here

^{1Source: Ubuntu Geek}

Answer 2

Apparently in 2014 NM team introduced such a feature -- to specify priorities for different networks. There is now connection.autoconnect-priority.

https://www.hogarthuk.com/?q=node/8 provides lots of information on how to interface NetworkManager via nmcli.

For example with nmcli -f NAME,UUID,AUTOCONNECT,AUTOCONNECT-PRIORITY c you can list known networks and see their default priority to be 0.

Now I have ran nmcli connection modify HOME-WIFI connection.autoconnect-priority 10 to give my home WiFi higher priority. I have the same work wifi points available at home as well, but need to connect to HOME-WIFI when I am home. That command heavily rewritten /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/HOME-WIFI which added autoconnect-priority=10 into [connection] section - time will show if it works as it should.

Answer 3

Can WiFi priority be dragged up and down in NetworkManager?

The short answer is “Not yet.” As of early 2018, Ubuntu has nothing as easy as Microsoft Windows for setting the WiFi priority. However, there are ways to accomplish what you want.

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TL;DR? Summary

For command line use nmcli. For GUI, plasma-nm.

nmcli -f autoconnect-priority,name c
nmcli c mod "mypreferred" conn.autoconnect-p 10
nmcli c mod "xfinitywifi" conn.autoconnect-p -10

or

apt install plasma-nm
kde5-nm-connection-editor

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Available alternatives

Here are the currently available ways of setting WiFi priority, along with a short description of why they don't quite answer the original question.

Command line tools (nmcli)

While this solution is probably the easiest way to do it and it does work with NetworkManager, nmcli does not allow Microsoft Windows-style drag-and-drop reordering. In fact, nmcli (as the name suggests) is a "command line interface" to NetworkManager, which means you'll need to type commands in the terminal, which can be off-putting for some people. I'll describe more how to use it below.

Plasma-nm (kde5-nm-connection-editor)

This tool does not allow drag-and-drop reordering, but it does work with NetworkManager. Despite the name "KDE", it works with any desktop environment (I tested it with GNOME). It presents a graphical interface that lets one edit the "autoconnect-priority" of a network. I'll discuss how to use it below.

Wifi Radar

This tool does allow moving network priorities up and down, as requested. However, it is not actually integrated with Network Manager; in fact I believe it is a mistake to run both at the same time. Also, despite having a graphical interface, it is not as easy to use as it should be. Another reason to not use Wifi Radar is that it is a Python script that must be run as root, a potential security risk. Also, according to the man page, WiFi Radar is very power consuming and has "probably lots" of bugs.

GNOME (not even in the running)

I mention this more for completeness as it's what people would expect to work, but it doesn't. GNOME, which is Ubuntu's current default desktop environment, simply cannot show or edit autoconnect priorities at all.

Emacs/vi

If you're a hardcore geek, mumble code in your sleep, all you need to do is add the line "autoconnect-priority: 10" to the file /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/foo. See nm-settings(5).

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Full explanation with examples

Both nmcli and kde5-nm-connection-editor can edit individual network autoconnect priorities. Only nmcli can show you a list of all the currently set priorities. Both assume that you know that higher numbers represent higher priorities and that zero is the default. Negative numbers are allowed and work to mark a network as a "last resort" if nothing else is available (See man nm-settings and search for "autoconnect-priority".)

The changes nmcli and plasma-nm make are stored permanently by NetworkManager in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/.

How to use nmcli

This is my preferred solution and it already comes with Ubuntu. If you're familiar with the command line or if you have a naturally linguistic brain, you may find this solution easier than using a mouse. On the other hand, if you want to try a graphical interface first, skip ahead to the next section on KDE's plasma-nm. For all of the examples below, you'll need to open a Terminal to type in the commands.

To list current priorities

$ nmcli -f autoconnect-priority,name c 

Sample output:

0                     Blake5Net             
0                     Caffe Ubuntu      
0                     Caffe Ubuntu Guest      
0                     Fire Hotspot          
0                     JET & Mishka             
0                     La Marzocco           
0                     Le_MX                 
0                     MobileLab             
0                     xfinitywifi           

Tip: If you have a very long list, you may want to sort them by priority:

nmcli -f autoconnect-priority,name c | sort -n

How to set a network as preferred

nmcli connection modify "Caffe Ubuntu" connection.autoconnect-priority 10

Note that you can use any number you want for the priority. A larger number moves the network to the top of the list.

How to set a network as a last resort

nmcli connection modify "xfinitywifi" connection.autoconnect-priority -10

Negative priority values are lower than the default of 0, which means they will be tried last, if no other known WiFi network can be found. Note that, due to a bug in some versions of nmcli, you may see negative numbers listed as huge positive numbers like 4294967286. Don't worry about this as it will still work fine.

How to use plasma-nm

Plasma-nm, KDE's NetworkManager client, lets you change a network's priority through several clicks in a graphical interface. You cannot drag-and-drop, instead you must specify a number. As with nmcli, higher numbers are higher priority. Unfortunately, you cannot see a list of what other priorities you've set in the past so you may have to guess at a number. Personally, I just use "10" for preferred networks and "-10" for last resort networks and I don't differentiate between them beyond that.

You don't need to install all of KDE just to get plasma-nm. (On my machine, running GNOME, the full KDE package would have required downloading over 600MB; in contrast, plasma-nm was only 8MB). I installed plasma-nm from the command line like so:

sudo apt install plasma-nm

and I ran it by typing this:

kde5-nm-connection-editor

(Well, technically, I didn't type all that. I used TAB to autocomplete the typing for me).

If you don't use KDE, the first time you run plasma-nm, it will ask you about creating a "wallet" to store credentials. I just hit "Cancel" to the question and it worked fine for me.

Then it will show you a list of connections. Double-click on the connection you want to edit. That will bring up the "Connection Editor" panel. Choose the "General Configuration" tab. At the bottom, you'll see a box labeled "Priority". Change it from 0 to 10 (preferred) or -10 (last resort). Click "OK" to save the changes.

Since changes are permanently stored with NetworkManager, once you're finished adjusting priorities, you don't have to keep plasma-nm installed if you don't want to. (sudo apt remove plasma-nm)