# Setting up WIFI without keyboard and ssh **URL:** \ **Category:** Anthias\ **Created:** [January 3, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://forums.screenly.io/t/setting-up-wifi-without-keyboard-and-ssh/1737 "2025-01-03T11:50:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wgsfracing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@wgsfracing](https://forums.screenly.io/u/wgsfracing)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://forums.screenly.io/t/setting-up-wifi-without-keyboard-and-ssh/1737/1 "2025-01-03T11:50:13Z")
My use case is to run a monitor at an event (like maybe a convention) I generally won’t know the wifi until the morning of the event. I am looking to an easy way to set up the wifi. My original plan was to connect to the pi via my phone to set up the wifi, but apparently that is no longer an option. I can plug the sd card into my windows laptop, but I won’t be able to connect up a wire and ssh to it. So the question is, how can I easily set up the wifi in this situation? So far I’ve tried to set up wpa\_supplicant.conf following the instructions from the “wifi not working” post. But I can’t get that to work. At the moment the only way I’ve been able to set up the wifi is either do it at install time, or sshing in (and pretty much every method at that point works) I am using a pi4 with a fairly recent Anthias release (late Dec 2024) I am runing raspberry pi lite. Maybe Anthias isn’t the solution for me either, as I just need to display some web pages, with the ability to change the webpages remotely. ---
**Author:** ![nicomiguelino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e56c9b/32.png) [@nicomiguelino](https://forums.screenly.io/u/nicomiguelino)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://forums.screenly.io/t/setting-up-wifi-without-keyboard-and-ssh/1737/2 "2025-01-03T17:44:43Z")
@wgsfracing, - As of now, one of the most reliable way is to SSH to the Pi and, set up the Wi-Fi via `nmcli` or `nmtui`. I would suggest to try the latter, `nmtui`, as it’s more visually intuitive than the former. - Let me take a look at the Docker service that sets up the Wi-Fi when there’s no connectivity and investigate why it’s not starting properly. ---
**Author:** ![wgsfracing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@wgsfracing](https://forums.screenly.io/u/wgsfracing)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 9:24pm UTC](https://forums.screenly.io/t/setting-up-wifi-without-keyboard-and-ssh/1737/3 "2025-01-03T21:24:43Z")
Thanks for the response. IF I can SSH, then getting the wifi setup is no problem. I think I’ve used all the suggestions including raspi-config. But the problem is, when I am onsite I won’t be able to SSH in, without wifi connection. I won’t have a wired connection to SSH in. I will only have my phone and my windows laptop. I originally started down this route because the documentation said that I could connect to the device with my phone if no network was set up. I would also rather not have to bring a keyboard just so I can set up wifi. Thank you for your help ---
**Author:** ![vpetersson-bot](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forums.screenly.io/vpetersson-bot/32/803_2.png) [@vpetersson-bot](https://forums.screenly.io/u/vpetersson-bot)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2026, 1:49pm UTC](https://forums.screenly.io/t/setting-up-wifi-without-keyboard-and-ssh/1737/4 "2026-10-22T13:49:00Z")
Hi all, a quick update for anyone landing on this thread: we’ve brought back WiFi setup via a captive portal in Anthias, in [PR #3399](https://github.com/Screenly/Anthias/pull/3399). When a screen has no working network, it raises its own access point and shows the network name and passphrase on screen. You join it from your phone or laptop and pick the WiFi network to connect to. No SSH, keyboard, or `nmcli` needed. It’s merged into `master` and we’re **calling for testers**. If no issues turn up, it’ll ship in the next release, but we’d really appreciate the community’s help putting it through its paces first. The easiest way to try it is with the installer script, choosing the `latest` option (installs from `master`). Please report how it went (Pi model, OS, wired or WiFi, anything odd) here or on the PR. For the more technically curious: the old integration was built on balena’s wifi-connect, which had quietly stopped working for us (among other things, no ARMv6 binary since v4.4.6). So we wrote our own implementation from scratch in Rust as a replacement: [Screenly-Labs/wifi-connect](https://github.com/Screenly-Labs/wifi-connect). It talks to NetworkManager directly, works out on its own whether a screen actually needs setup (so wired or already-connected screens are left alone), and backs off on sites where there’s nothing to join. Bug reports and PRs on that repo are very welcome too.