If you want to enable/disable WiFi from the command line you can use the following system commands:

Toggle:

/sbin/radio toggle

Force radio off:

/sbin/radio off

Force radio on:

/sbin/radio on

Modern routers come with two or more chipsets/WiFi interfaces. There is usually one 2.4GHz interface and one or more 5GHz interfaces. In certain cases you might want to control a specific chipset via the command line.

Once you've identified the name of the appropriate radio interface (via the Virtual Wireless page):

Do not blindly use this table. It is only an example. Router interface names may vary. For full chipset operation, refer to the “ethX” name reference of your interface(s). Once you have the correct names, you can check the status of your WiFi interface as follows:

For example, using “eth1” in the above example:

Verify interface state

int=eth1
[ $(wl -i $int radio | grep -Eo [0-1]$) -eq 1 ] && echo “radio $int is off” || echo “radio $int is on”

Toggle interface state

int=eth1
[ $(wl -i $int radio | grep -Eo [0-1]$) -eq 1 ] && wl -i $int radio on || wl -i $int radio off

Force interface off

int=eth1
wl -i $int radio off

Force interface on

int=eth1
wl -i $int radio on

In some cases, you might want to just restrict access to only one specific SSID or change settings specific to only one WiFi interface.

This can be achieved as follows:

First, identify the SSID virtual interface you want to control. The full list of WiFi interfaces on your router and all its sub-interfaces can be found in the Virtual Wireless menu.

Virtual interfaces are always defined as: [ main wireless interface name ] + [.] + [number 0-3]

For example, on this router, in the Virtual Wireless menu, we can see the 2.4GHz interface named: “wl0.1”.

Now, let's assume you want to control “wl1.3” which is associated to the SSID: “test”

You could perform the following tasks:

Toggle interface state

int=wl1.3
[ $(wl -i $int radio | grep -Eo [0-1]$) -eq 1 ] && wl -i $int radio on || wl -i $int radio off

Force Interface Off

int=wl1.3
wl -i $int radio off

Force Interface On

int=wl1.3
wl -i $int radio on

Often, a specific defined SSID operates on multiple interfaces/sub-interfaces.

You can disable that SSID on all interfaces everywhere, as follows:

Force Off

SSID=MYCOOLSSID
nvram show | grep ssid | grep $SSID | while read line; do wl -i $(echo $line | cut -d“=” -f1 | cut -d_ -f1 ) radio off; done

Force On

SSID=MYCOOLSSID
nvram show | grep ssid | grep $SSID | while read line; do wl -i $(echo $line | cut -d“=” -f1 | cut -d_ -f1 ) radio on; done