Ubuntu – How to move wifi passwords to a new installation

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I have an Acer Aspire ZG5 netbook which is currently running Jolicloud, but I've decided it isn't for me and plan to switch to Lubuntu or Xubuntu.

However, I do lot of travelling and have many saved wifi passwords for different offices, hotels, cafes, restaurants, friends' and relatives' houses etc. It would be very annoying to have to ask for and reenter all of these passwords.

Is there a way to transfer my saved wifi passwords from the old installation to the new one?

Best Answer

On my 12.04 system the WiFi connections and passwords (in the clear) were stored in text files in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

Stopping the network manager, copying these files to the new machine, restoring the permissions and restarting network manager worked for me.

sudo stop network-manager
sudo cp /backup/path/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/* /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
sudo chown root.root /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*
sudo start network-manager
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