This 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). You can also create separate networks for IoT (Internet of Things) devices. IoT devices are often untrusted in terms of security. Some completely infringe upon your privacy.

In this table, you can add, remove or modify virtual wireless interfaces (VIFs). Clicking on any of the tabs in the Virtual Wireless Interfaces section displays the configuration/settings for that interface.

Interface: Here, enter the name you want to give to the wireless VIF (Virtual Interface) in that row.

Enabled: Checking this enables or disables the VIF in that row.

SSID: Here, enter the the wireless Service Set Identifier of the VIF in that row.

Mode: Here, you can select 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: This 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, to enable any virtual wireless network, the corresponding, shared main interface must be 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 on. 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 there are and the less throughput is available to each client. However, the performance difference is barely noticeable with 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.

Warning! Avoid using VIFs on an interface that is configured in Wireless Ethernet Bridge or Media Bridge mode. That can cause 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's unknown at that moment. The MAC Address will display correctly as soon as the network is restarted and the menu refreshed.

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

The web interface allows you to configure a maximum of 4 VIFs for each physical wireless interface. On devices with multiple VIF capabilities, In addition to the primary VIF, you can define up to 3 extra VIFs.

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