wlan0 not detecting

[pawstar-lag]

Windows Build Number

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.928]

WSL Version

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

4.19.128-microsoft-standard

Distro Version

Ubuntu 20.04

Other Software

ifconfig, iwconfig, nmcli, and other tools that should show wlan0 (or wlan1 or wifi0 or wifi1, etc.) do not show wlan0 even when my computer is connected to the internet using wifi.

Repro Steps

For example:

my_name@my_computer:~$ ifconfig wlan wlan: error fetching interface information: Device not found

Expected Behavior

I was expecting to see a listing of wlan0, wlan1, wifi0 or wifi1. I found this image on Bing to show something similar to what I would have expected (Note: this snip was taken from a picture of the output of a ParrotOS system that is not WSL)

Actual Behavior

Instead I get the error message:

wlan: error fetching interface information: Device not found

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[cerebrate]

The network interface you see in WSL isn't the host machine's network interface directly; what WSL sees is a virtual network interface (for the light VM WSL2 runs within) connected to a Hyper-V virtual switch behind the host's network card, so all WSL's network tools see is that virtual interface, as eth0.

[pawstar-lag]

Thanks for the clarification. Is there any way around this?

[cerebrate]

It is unlikely that there will be; WSL2 works essentially the same way as a virtual machine where networking is concerned, and as such, it doesn't get direct hardware access.

[pawstar-lag]

Alright. Thanks for telling me.

[slPerryRhodan]

Actually, it shouldn't be impossible. In VMware you can connect USB Wifi Adapter to the virtual machine. Even for WSL2 there exists a github project to attach USB devices to WSL usbipd-win. And in this issue #8240 is already a super complicated workaround, but not everyone can or have the time to compile a linux kernel for his own WSL2 version.

Would be super nice to support connecting USB devices out of the box and adding wifi drivers without re-compiling a linux kernel.

I'm using WSL for coding or using linux tools like tuya converter. I have an Raspberry, so I don't relay always on WSL, but I'm using it as smart home device and dont' want to overload it with temporarily stuff.

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

This issue has been automatically closed since it has not had any activity for the past year. If you're still experiencing this issue please re-file this as a new issue or feature request.

Thank you!