WiFi on the Xiegu X6100

WiFi on the Xiegu X6100

So, I have this Xiegu X6100. It is basically a GNU/Linux machine running a dedicated radio application. I wanted to connect it to my WiFi network, but I could not manage to get it to connect.

I tried some different networks, and found out that it cannot connect to the WiFi if you have a space in the password. It just doesn’t want to connect. I got it to work from the command line. Here is what I did with my Macbook Pro and the radio.

USB serial

Hook up your Xiegu X6100 with the USB cable in the “DEV” port to your computer. After a short while you get a new USB-modem in your devices:

$ ls -la /dev/cu.usbmodem*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel  0x9000001 Jan 30 21:46 /dev/cu.usbmodem535C0063101
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel  0x9000001 Jan 30 21:46 /dev/cu.usbmodem535C0063103

The actual names of the devices may differ on your system.

We can use screen (or putty, or any other serial emulating program) to connect to this serial port:

sudo screen /dev/cu.usbmodem535C0063101 115200,cs8,cstopb,parenb,parodd

This command will start a terminal on the Xiegu X6100. You can log in with user “root” and password “123”.

If you have weird behaviour with the terminal (e.g. what you type does not show up correctly), reboot the radio and try again.

WiFi connection

I messed around quite a lot, but what got it to work eventually for me was the following command:

export TERM=xterm
nmtui

There you can “Edit a connection”, select your SSID and enter all the details. Once you are done, the system will connect to your WiFi. Use “ipconfig” or “ip a” to show the IP address. Now you can use SSH to connect to the radio.