Wi-Fi has changed the way we enjoy the facility of internet. Within the Wi-Fi range, any device capable of connection can enjoy the fast internet without any wired connection! However, we tend to forget the Wi-Fi password. Because once we connect to the specific network, we don’t remember them after a few months or so. Recovering Wi-Fi password from Windows is really easy, but recovering from Linux can be a bit difficult.
Recover Wi-Fi Password
Depending on your distro, the method can vary. But the techniques can be the same in most scenario. Let’s start digging up the lost password! Note that I’m using “elementary OS”, but the method should work on most modern Linux distros. My desktop is connected to “TP-LINK_8D72” Wi-Fi network.
- Open a terminal.
- Navigate to the folder where the system stores the connection information.
cd /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
- Time to check the list of all the stored network(s).
ls
- Open the file using the following command.
sudo cat TP-LINK_8D72
- Search for the following line:
Voila! The password is recovered once again!
Other places to try
However, there are some old and lightweight distros that use “wicd” to connect to networks. In that case, follow these steps:
- Open a terminal.
- Navigate to the connections’ folder.
cd /etc/wicd- Open the “wireless settings” file.
sudo cat wireless-settings.conf
If you didn’t find any success, another file to look for is “wpa_supplicant.conf”. Check out the file using the following steps:
- Open terminal.
- Run this command:
sudo locate wpa_supplicant.conf
- Then, follow the steps stated above to read the file and recover the lost password.
Enjoy!
