Connecting to the Pi

Here's how to connect to the Pi.

Ad-hoc, Arch Linux

These instructions will use the tools ip and iw. Make sure you have them installed before proceeding. Also, you might have to do some of these commands with sudo.

Helpful background information: the Arch Wiki's articles on wireless network configuration and ad-hoc networking.

First, make sure your network interface (i.e. network card) doesn't have anything running on it. In the examples below, dev wlp4s0 is used as the name of the interface. If your interface name is different (get the interface name with iw dev, and it'll be after the word "Interface"), replace as necessary. If you use netctl, the following command will stop the current connection:

   netctl stop $(netctl list | grep '^\*' | cut -d'*' -f2)

Now, while your interface is down, change it over to IBSS (the type for ad-hoc data):

   iw dev wlp4s0 set type ibss

After that, join the ad-hoc network. Replace FREQUENCY with an actual frequency. Choose the frequency from this table. You'll probably use 2.4 GHz (802.11b/g/n/ax) channels 1 or 2, which are 2412 and 2417 MHz respectively, so you would replace FREQUENCY with 2412 or 2417.

   iw dev wlp4s0 ibss join RPiwireless FREQUENCY

Now, register an IP address: (I haven't figured out if this next command is strictly necessary)

   ip addr add 192.168.1.2/255.255.255.0 dev wlp4s0

And try to connect: (you may have to wait a minute or so before this starts working)

   ssh pi@192.168.1.1

The username (the pi@ part) is important because otherwise ssh may try to use your current username, which will almost certainly not be pi).

Warning! The ssh connection produced by this method is almost unusably slow at times. I (Daniel, April 2019) am trying to fix this.