+++ Saturday  1 November 2025 +++

rfkill on Debian without /sbin/rfkill
=====================================

Today I installed Debian Bookworm on an old laptop.
For the installation I used an ISO-image from last year:

   debian-12.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso

I had downloaded this ISO in the past to install some virtual
machines, and now used this again so I didn't have to download a new
one.

During the install it recognized the WiFi-chip, and a working
wireless connection was set up. The installer downloaded a lot of
packages, everything went fine.

No WiFi
-------
After the installation was done, the laptop rebooted as usual.
After log in, there was no working network connection :(

Trying to get the WiFi working, a message showed that the
WiFi connection was not possible due to a soft rf-kill.

It turned out that rfkill was not installed, /sbin/rfkill
was missing.

Solution
--------
In the /sys/class/rfkill directory were three sub directories:
rfkill0, rfkill1, and rfkill2.

In each of these directories, the virtual file 'soft' was set
at "1". In all three sub directories I issued the command

     echo "0" > soft

After this, I was able to setup the WiFi using wpa_supplicant,
and there was much rejoicing

The first thing I did, was `apt-get install rfkill' :)


Last edited: $Date: 2025/11/01 17:07:51 $