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advanced-wlanvifs

Virtual Wireless

The Virtual Wireless menu allows you to create and modify virtual wireless interfaces for virtual wireless networks. This is useful for creating things like guest networks, (for questionable/unfamiliar users). It's also useful for creating separate networks for IoT (Internet of Things) devices. IoT devices are often untrusted in terms of security.

Virtual Wireless Interfaces

Clicking on any of the tabs in the Virtual Wireless Interfaces section displays the configuration/settings for that interface.


virtual_wireless.jpg


Interface: The wireless VIF (Virtual Interface) name

Enabled: Whether this VIF should be active and brought online

SSID: The wireless Service Set Identifier

Mode: Allows selection of the wireless Interface's mode:

  • Access Point
  • Access Point + WDS
  • Wireless Client
  • Wireless Ethernet Bridge
  • WDS
  • Media Bridge

For details on Wireless modes, please see the “Wireless Mode” tables on the Network wiki page.


Bridge: Allows you to select to which LAN bridge this VIF should be assigned.

Virtual wireless networks share the same radio as their corresponding main wireless interface. Thus, for any virtual wireless network you want to enable, you must ensure the corresponding, shared main interface is enabled. For example, to enable VIF wl0.1, the main wireless interface wl0 must be enabled. The opposite, is not true. Turning off a corresponding VIF has no effect on the on/off status of the corresponding main interface.

Physical wireless interfaces are listed as wl0, wl1, wl2, and so on. An alias (like for physical interfaces) is identified by a period (“.”) and “reference number” , such as wl0.1, wl0.2 and so forth. For example, in the image above, the virtual network wl0.1 (sharing the 2.4 GHz radio) has SSID name “Guest24”. The virtual network wl0.2 (sharing the 5 GHz radio) has SSID name “Guest50”.

The more virtual interfaces there are, the more possible SSIDs you get and the less throughput is available to each client. However, the performance difference is barely noticeable for up to 4-5 virtual SSIDs.

WFilter: Here, you can enable/disable Wireless MAC address filtering for the VIF on that line, similar to that in the Wireless Filter menu.

Virtual Wireless Notes

Warning! Avoid using virtual interfaces on an interface in Wireless Ethernet Bridge or Media Bridge mode due to possible problems.

When you create/define a new wireless VIF (Virtual interface), its MAC Address will be shown (incorrectly) as “00:00:00:00:00:00”, as it is unknown at that moment. The MAC Address will display correctly as soon as the network is restarted and the menu is refreshed.

When saving changes, the MAC Addresses of all defined non-primary wireless VIFs could sometimes already be set, but might be recreated by the wl driver (Broadcom's proprietary wireless LAN driver). Thus, previous settings may need to be updated/changed accordingly in the MAC Address menu after saving settings and rebooting the router.

FreshTomato's web interface allows you to configure a maximum of 4 VIFs for each physical wireless interface available. You can define up to 3 extra VIFs in addition to the primary VIF (on devices with multiple VIF capabilities).

You should not change configuration settings for the primary VIF of any physical wireless interfaces in this menu. For that, use the Network page instead.



advanced-wlanvifs.txt · Last modified: 2023/06/18 23:03 by hogwild