Set up Wifi in PI OS Lite

This guide assumes you are running Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bookworm or later) and have command line access.

1. Enable & Connect Wi-Fi

If your Wi-Fi radio is blocked or “unavailable,” force it on and connect using nmcli.

Enable the Radio:

sudo rfkill unblock wifi
nmcli radio wifi on

sudo rfkill unblock wifi
nmcli radio wifi on

Connect to Network:

Use single quotes ‘ around the password if it contains special characters like backticks or exclamation marks.

sudo nmcli dev wifi connect "Your_SSID" password 'Your_Password'

sudo nmcli dev wifi connect "Your_SSID" password 'Your_Password'

Verify:

nmcli dev status

nmcli dev status

Look for “connected” in green.

2. Force Time Sync

apt-get fails if your time is out of sync. Use timedatectl to enable network time synchronization immediately.

Enable NTP (Network Time Protocol):

sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

Set Your Timezone (Optional but Recommended):

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/London

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/London

(Replace with your region, e.g., Europe/London, etc).

Verify:

date

date

3. Enable Auto-Login (Console)

Skip the login prompt on boot. You can do this via the raspi-config menu, but here is the single command to do it instantly.

Enable Console Auto-Login:

sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B2

sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B2

Reboot to apply changes:

sudo reboot

sudo reboot

Troubleshooting Cheat Sheet

• Wi-Fi still unavailable? You likely haven’t set a country code (required for 5GHz). Run: sudo raspi-config nonint do_wifi_country US (Replace US with your country code).
• Date still wrong? If the internet time server is blocked, force it manually once: sudo date -s “2026-01-12 10:00:00”