[SOLVED] What is wmaster0 ?

witek · 12-15-2009, 02:49 AM

Hello,

I noticed that after I added wireless card I have wlan0 and wmaster0. What is this wmaster? It has no wireless extension however can be configured with ifconfig.

Has this got something to do with master mode of my wifi card? I`ve been trying to set master mode but I failed.

AleLinuxBSD · 12-15-2009, 02:57 AM

From: linuxwireless.org

Quote:

Lets clarify device names first. Regularly you should only see two new device names:

* wmaster0
* wlan0

The wmaster0 device is what we call the master device. The master device is an internal master device used only by mac80211. It should be ignored by users. If possible we will try to hide it from users later.

On distribution releases with old udev rules you may end up with strange network device names, for example, wlan0_rename. You may also end up with master device names such as eth3, when this was actually intended to be named wmaster0. This happens because master interface has the same MAC address as the real interface, and it is created first. The old udev rule, which keys on the MAC addres, may rename it to device names like eth3, for example. Then the real interface is created, udev sees that it has already renamed an interface with that MAC and gives it the wlan0_rename name.

witek · 12-15-2009, 04:41 AM

Thanks a lot