Setting up Raspberry Pi 3 to Wifi AND Ethernet -

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-1]In this post I will discuss about Setting up Raspberry Pi 3 to Wifi AND Ethernet and how to connect the Raspberry Pi to the internet. As we know that the Raspberry Pi is a pocket size computer with computation capability equal to that of the normal Personal Computer. It is quite useful if you have the internet connection on your Raspberry Pi either for your projects or for browsing on the Raspberry Pi itself. Raspberry Pi can easily be connected to the internet, two commonly used and simple ways of connecting the Raspberry Pi to the internet is either through the Ethernet cable or via Wi Fi. Here in this post I will discuss both these ways of connecting the Raspberry Pi to the internet.

Setting up Raspberry Pi 3 to Wifi AND Ethernet

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In addition of the advantage in the Projects and the internet browsing the connection of the Raspberry Pi to the internet is also important because in your several projects you may need to download and install the packages or libraries to support programming and enable other features of the Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi connection to internet through Ethernet:

Although the internet connection of the Raspberry Pi is very basic, I am discussing it here because in the next few posts the discussion will be oriented around the internet, Wi Fi and Raspberry Pi. So this post will acts as the introduction of upcoming posts plus you will learn the internet connection to the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi has on board Ethernet port and you can simply connect the Ethernet cable from the Raspberry Pi to your home router. The router automatically gives to your device the unique IP address as soon as it gets connected to the router. So by connecting the Ethernet cable from your Raspberry Pi to the network router your Raspberry Pi will have a unique IP address and thus has the internet connection. It is dead simple.

Raspberry Pi Internet via Wi Fi:

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Now let us see how to establish the connection between the Raspberry Pi and the internet using the Wi Fi. As we already know that to set up the Bluetooth on the Raspberry Pi we need to install some of the additional packages to be able to communicate wirelessly over Bluetooth. These additional files contain Bluetooth communication protocols and the Python libraries for enabling the code writing in the Python IDLE. Fortunately we do not need to install any package to let the Raspberry Pi communicate over Wi Fi. But still you need to remember some of the commands to be able to connect your Raspberry Pi to internet via Wi Fi through the terminal window. So let us begin:

Step1:

First of all open the terminal window in the Raspberry Pi.

Step2:

Now type the following command in the terminal window and press enter:

sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

This command will give you the list of all the available networks near your Raspberry Pi. The name of your Wi Fi network will appear in the line with ESSID written in fornt of your Wi Fi network name.

Step3:

After this we need to enter the name of our Wi Fi network and its passcode in the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

Step4:

Open this file in the nano by typing the following command in the terminal window.

sudo nano /etc/wpa-supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

At the end of the file following lines will appear do the changes in these lines as follows:

Network = {
ssid = “the name of your Wi Fi network comes here”
psk = “the password of your network comes here”
}

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Thus we can connect to the Wi Fi in this way. Now press ctrl-x. It will save the file and then exit.

Raspberry Pi Wi Fi applications:

After you have learned the two ways of connecting the Raspberry Pi to the internet now let us consider some of the important, useful and interesting applications that can be done using Raspberry Pi and internet. With the help of the Wi Fi on the Raspberry Pi you can browse to any website just like you do with your personal computer or laptop, you can create your own web server using your Raspberry Pi, a lot of Internet of Things projects can be created using the Raspberry Pi and internet connection over Wi-Fi. In the posts to come I will discuss the Home Automation System based on Raspberry Pi via Wi Fi and the web server based on the Raspberry Pi. In short think of anything you can do with your laptop or your computer and internet you can do the same with the Raspberry Pi.

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That is all for now I hope this article would be helpful for you. In the next article I will come up with more interesting applications of the Raspberry Pi. till then stay connected, keep reading and enjoy learning.