I have a Pi Zero 2 W running Raspbian Buster where I need to disable the onboard WiFi, wlan0, and use a USB WiFi dongle. How do I make wlan1 join my WiFi network?
I have tried various approaches, but so far the USB WiFi (wlan1) always fails to join the network. Once I can get wlan1 to join the network, I plan to disable the built in WiFi (wlan0) by adding to /boot/config.txt: dtoverlay=disable-wifi
Currently, I've changed my files in /etc/network/interfaces.d/ to be:
/etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
/etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan1
auto wlan1
iface wlan1 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
My /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file contains:
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
country=US
network={
ssid="<my SSID>"
psk=<my psk>
}
The ifconfig command returns:
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 13 bytes 1756 (1.7 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 13 bytes 1756 (1.7 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet <XXXX> netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast <XXXX>
inet6 <XXXX> prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
ether e4:5f:01:49:ca:e2 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 765 bytes 57373 (56.0 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 556 bytes 82690 (80.7 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
wlan1: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:0c:43:00:1e:62 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
iwconfig returns (FYI, I have turned off power management for the WiFi):
lo no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"<My SSID>"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point: <XXXX>
Bit Rate=14.4 Mb/s Tx-Power=31 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=54/70 Signal level=-56 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:95 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
wlan1 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=30 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
sudo systemctl status networking.service returns:
● networking.service - Raise network interfaces
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/networking.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2022-12-19 15:52:17 EST; 5min ago
Docs: man:interfaces(5)
Process: 418 ExecStart=/sbin/ifup -a --read-environment (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 418 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CPU: 229ms
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi wpa_supplicant[460]: rfkill: Cannot get wiphy information
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi wpa_supplicant[460]: Could not read interface wlan1 flags: No such device
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi wpa_supplicant[460]: WEXT: Could not set interface 'wlan1' UP
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi wpa_supplicant[460]: wlan1: Failed to initialize driver interface
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi ifup[455]: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant: 120: cannot create /dev/stderr: No such device or address
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi ifup[447]: run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant exited with return code 1
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi ifup[418]: ifup: failed to bring up wlan1
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi systemd[1]: networking.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi systemd[1]: networking.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Dec 19 15:52:17 mypi systemd[1]: Failed to start Raise network interfaces.
