rfkill — tool for enabling and disabling wireless devices

Examples (TL;DR)

Synopsis

rfkill [options] [command] [id|type ...]

Description

rfkill lists, enabling and disabling wireless devices.

The command "list" output format is deprecated and maintained for backward compatibility only. The new output format is the default when no command is specified or when the option --output is used.

The default output is subject to change.  So whenever possible, you should avoid using default outputs in your scripts.  Always explicitly define expected columns by using the --output option together with a columns list in environments where a stable output is required.

Options

-J, --json

Use JSON output format.

-n, --noheadings

Do not print a header line.

-o, --output

Specify which output columns to print.  Use --help to get a list of available columns.

--output-all

Output all available columns.

-r, --raw

Use the raw output format.

--help

Display help text and exit.

--version

Display version information and exit.

Commands

help

Display help text and exit.

event

Listen for rfkill events and display them on stdout.

list [id|type ...]

List the current state of all available devices.  The command output format is deprecated, see the section Description. It is a good idea to check with list command id or type scope is appropriate before setting block or unblock. Special all type string will match everything.  Use of multiple id or type arguments is supported.

block id|type [...]

Disable the corresponding device.

unblock id|type [...]

Enable the corresponding device.  If the device is hard-blocked, for example via a hardware switch, it will remain unavailable though it is now soft-unblocked.

Examples

rfkill --output ID,TYPE
rfkill block all
rfkill unblock wlan
rfkill block bluetooth uwb wimax wwan gps fm nfc

Authors

rfkill was originally written by Johannes Berg and Marcel Holtmann. The code has been later modified by Sami Kerola and Karel Zak for util-linux project.

This manual page was written by Darren Salt, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).

See Also

powertop(8), systemd-rfkill(8), Linux kernel documentation

Availability

The rfkill command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive.

Info

2017-07-06 util-linux System Administration