rfkill - Man Page

tool for enabling and disabling wireless devices

Examples (TL;DR)

List devices: rfkill
Filter by columns: rfkill -o ID,TYPE,DEVICE
Block devices by type (e.g. bluetooth, wlan): rfkill block bluetooth
Unblock devices by type (e.g. bluetooth, wlan): rfkill unblock wlan
Output in JSON format: rfkill -J

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.
-h, --help: Display help text and exit.
-V, --version: Print version 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 Description section. 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. Possible types are all, {wlan | wifi}, bluetooth, {uwb | ultrawideband}, wimax, wwan, gps, fm, nfc.
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.
toggle id|type [...]: Enable or disable the corresponding device.

Example

  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 the util-linux project.

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