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Does the linux driver for the Raspberry Pi 3 Wifi chip support multiple virtual interfaces?

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  • Virtual interfaces are software artifacts implemented by an operating system that may access hardware. Please add context to explain specifically what it is you want to do.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 1:38
  • are you asking about VLAN hardware support? Or something else?
    – JayEye
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 2:51
  • Updated the question
    – Andrei
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 8:53
  • "I belive some WIFI chips do not support this." -> I believe this is false, as again, virtual interfaces are software artifacts. However, there is a subtlety involved in that the driver used may not provide VIF support -- see here. There may be specific contexts which do require hardware support (e.g., two VIFs on one subnet would not), but since again you have not said what it is you want to do, no one else can say anything about that here one way or the other.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 12:45
  • Since the operating system predominantly used on the pi is GNU/Linux, I've edited your question on that basis. You may be able to use this information to find the answer to your own question. I've also removed the, "If so how do you define them?" question because without a more specific context, no one can read your mind online to explain how to do whatever it is you want to do.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented May 15, 2016 at 12:48

1 Answer 1

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I was able to configure them on RPi3 UbuntuMATE-16.04 like one does on any other ubuntu box and they showed up in ifconfig but they didn't work in that the virtual interface did not respond to pings nor any other network traffic while the real interface did respond from another system. If I was logged into the system, I could access the virtual interfaces, but I'm guessing that might take another path and not actually go through the network stack. I also noticed "Interrupt" information was reported on other systems where virtual interfaces were programmed and worked, while the RPi3 didn't report that.

This is what RPi3 reported:

RPi3-UbuntuMATE-16.04#
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX  
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XX7.109  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XX7.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: XXXX::XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXX9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1194 errors:0 dropped:24 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1234 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:124444 (124.4 KB)  TX bytes:185110 (185.1 KB)

wlan0:1   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX  
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XX1.201  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XX1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

wlan0:2   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX  
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XX7.201  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XX7.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

This is what I normally see with Interrupt information when the virtual interface works:

ubuntu-16.04#
eno1:0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX  
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XX7.249  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XX7.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          Interrupt:18 Memory:fb900000-fb920000
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