Network Manager in the Terminal on i3

If you're in i3, you'll likely want a terminal-based network manager to connect to a network.

Install

You'll want a tool called nmcli, or network manager cli. It's likely already installed. If not, install:

# pop!_os
sudo apt install nmcli
# or, arch
sudo pacman -S nmcli

See Devices

To see the network devices on your machine, run:

nmcli dev

Which returns something like:

DEVICE             TYPE      STATE         CONNECTION     
wlp0s20f3          wifi      connected     bandwagon
p2p-dev-wlp0s20f3  wifi-p2p  disconnected  --             
lo                 loopback  unmanaged     --

See SIDs

To see the available SIDs available by wifi, type:

nmcli dev wifi

That will return something like:

IN-USE  BSSID              SSID            MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY  
*       9A:CD:00:5F:F2:4D  bandwagon       Infra  6     130 Mbit/s  94      ▂▄▆█  WPA2 WPA3 
*       9A:CD:00:5F:F2:4D  bandwagon       Infra  6     130 Mbit/s  90      ▂▄▆█  WPA2 WPA3 
        98:38:FC:AE:46:C8  Cactus          Infra  1     130 Mbit/s  84      ▂▄▆█  WPA2      
        98:38:FC:6E:46:C8  Cactus Guest    Infra  1     130 Mbit/s  84      ▂▄▆█  WPA2

Connect

To connect to a particular SID, run:

nmcli dev wifi connect bandwagon password abcd1234

Terminal GUI

If you want to use the terminal GUI or TUI version, there's an ncurses-based version. Type:

nmtui

That will start a a GUI with a dialog, buttons, etc that are navigable via keyboard.

What other tool do you like to use?