Station

A modern, keyboard-driven TUI for Linux network management

Station is a lightweight terminal user interface for managing WiFi connections on Linux. It supports both NetworkManager and iwd backends, auto-detected at startup via D-Bus.

Built with Rust, ratatui, and raw D-Bus calls — no async runtime, no bloat.

Features

• 📡 WiFi Management — scan, connect, disconnect, forget networks
• 🔒 Security — WPA2, WPA3, WEP, Open, and EAP networks
• 🔥 Access Point Mode — create WiFi hotspots with configurable security and channel
• 🔌 Dual Backend — NetworkManager and iwd, auto-detected or manually selected
• 🔍 Hidden Networks — connect to non-broadcasting SSIDs
• ⌨️ Keyboard-Driven — vim-style navigation, no mouse required
• 🎨 Themes — default, dark, and light color schemes
• ⚡ Fast — ~300KB binary, <20ms startup, ~3-5MB memory

Screenshot

┌─ Station v0.1.0 ──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Backend: NetworkManager WiFi: 📡 MyNetwork (72%) Sort: sig │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ WiFi Networks │
│ │
│ ▶ MyNetwork ▂▄▆█ WPA2 ●くろまる Connected │
│ GuestWiFi ▂▄▆_ Open │
│ Neighbor5G ▂▄__ WPA3 Saved │
│ │
│ Connected to MyNetwork │
│ ↑/↓: Nav Enter: Connect d: Disc f: Forget w: WiFi ... │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Installation

Nix (flake)

nix build
./result/bin/station
# Or run directly
nix run

Nix (development shell)

nix develop
cargo build --release

AUR (Arch Linux)

# Using an AUR helper
paru -S station-git
# Or manually
git clone https://codeberg.org/Pontoporeia/station.git
cd station/aur
makepkg -si

From Source

Requires pkg-config and libdbus-1-dev (Debian/Ubuntu), dbus (Arch), or dbus-devel (Fedora).

git clone https://codeberg.org/Pontoporeia/station.git
cd station
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/station /usr/local/bin/

Usage

# Start with auto-detected backend
station
# Force a specific backend
station --backend iwd
station --backend networkmanager
# Version
station --version

Keyboard Shortcuts

In dialogs:

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/station/config.toml (created automatically on first run).

# Override auto-detected backend
# backend = "networkmanager" # or "iwd"
[ui]
theme = "default" # "default" | "dark" | "light"
refresh_interval = 5 # seconds between automatic scans
sort_by = "signal" # "signal" | "name" | "security"
show_saved = true # sort saved networks first
[wifi]
mac_randomization = true
power_save = true

Requirements

• Linux
• D-Bus
• One of:
  • NetworkManager (most desktop distributions)
  • iwd (lightweight alternative)

Architecture

Station uses a single-threaded event loop with background threads for D-Bus operations:

• No async runtime — blocking D-Bus calls in std::thread, not Tokio
• ~40 transitive crate dependencies (vs ~150+ with an async stack)
• ratatui for terminal rendering, crossterm for input
• dbus crate (C bindings via libdbus) for system bus communication

src/
├── main.rs # CLI parsing, backend detection, terminal setup
├── app/
│ ├── state.rs # App struct, view management, dialog state
│ ├── event.rs # Event loop, terminal init/cleanup, key handling
│ └── messages.rs # AppEvent enum for thread→UI communication
├── backend/
│ ├── mod.rs # Backend trait (Send + Sync, object-safe)
│ ├── types.rs # Network, WifiStatus, APConfig, APStatus, SecurityType
│ ├── detector.rs # D-Bus ListNames → backend selection
│ ├── networkmanager.rs # Full NM backend (~1200 lines)
│ └── iwd.rs # Full iwd backend (~740 lines)
├── ui/
│ ├── render.rs # All rendering: main view, dialogs, help screen
│ ├── helpers.rs # Keybind layout, signal bars, text formatting
│ └── theme.rs # 3 color schemes
├── config/
│ └── mod.rs # TOML config with serde defaults
└── util/
 ├── sorting.rs # Connected-first, saved-first, signal/name/security sort
 └── error.rs # StationError with user-friendly messages

Performance

AI Disclosure

This tool was developed with the assistance of large language models (LLMs) throughout its history. The following models were used:

• Claude Sonnet 3.5 through Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic)
• DeepSeek V4 Pro (DeepSeek)

AI assistance was employed for code generation, refactoring, test authoring, documentation, debugging, and project scaffolding. All AI-generated output was reviewed, tested, and validated by a human before inclusion.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Links

• 🐛 Report bugs
• 📖 Technical specs
• 🗺️ Development roadmap