en	[[!meta title="Enabling a wireless device"]]

en	When Tails starts, Wi-Fi, WWAN, and WiMAX devices are enabled.

en	But all other kinds of wireless devices such as Bluetooth, GPS and FM devices are disabled by default. If you want to use such a device, you need to enable it first.

en	If Wi-Fi is not working, see [[troubleshooting Wi-Fi that is not working|doc/anonymous_internet/no-wifi]].

en	Enable a wireless device

en	This technique uses the command line.

en	When starting Tails, [[set up an administration password|doc/first_steps/welcome_screen/administration_password]].

en	To find out the index of the wireless device that you want to enable, open a [[root terminal|doc/first_steps/welcome_screen/administration_password#open_root_terminal]], and execute the following command:

en	rfkill list

en	For example, the command could return the following:

en	The device index is the number that appears at the beginning of the three lines describing each device. In this example, the index of the Bluetooth device is 1, while the index of the GPS device is 2. Yours are probably different.

en	To enable the wireless device, `execute` the following command in the root terminal, replacing index with the index found at step 2:

en	rfkill unblock index

en	Here is an example of the command to execute. Yours is probably different:

en	rfkill unblock 2

en	To verify that the wireless device is enabled, execute the following command in the root terminal again:

en	This output should be very similar to the one of step 2, but the device enabled at step 3 should not be soft blocked anymore.

en	0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no 1: hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: no 2: gps0: GPS Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no

en	Enable Bluetooth

en	Bluetooth is not enabled by default in Tails because it is insecure when trying to protect from a local adversary.

en	XXX: one also needs to remove `sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/no-bluetooth.conf && sudo udevadm trigger && sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth`.

en	To use Bluetooth in Tails nonetheless, you have to [[set up an administration password at boot time|doc/first_steps/welcome_screen/administration_password]] and install the `gnome-bluetooth` package.