[Help] Debian Wifi on Virtualbox

[Daemon]

Hey guys, so im a certified Winblows man here. Been using it for years, and am properly ashamed of the fact. So recently I've decided to start learning linux and am doing so with a Debian machine running on virtualbox. Just a regular GNOME install.

Now I quickly realized that Debian involves a lot more work than windows, including the needing of setting up the internet. So i talked to a guy I know and he told me that I needed to alter my /etc/network/interfaces   file as follows:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp


Now that would work fine I'm guessing, but after typing this change to interfaces and it not working I realized wow. he misunderstood me, thats for ethernet and I'm using wifi. So I asked the almighty Google, and changed it too:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp


Still doesn't work however. On the virtualbox I have the Debian machine set up to use the default adaptor, Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (NAT)

Can anyone tell me what I'm missing? I've been searching the internet like crazy and can't seem to get the damn thing working.

[RedBullAddicted]

Hi Daemon,

as far as I know you can not use your integrated wireless lan chip in a virtual machine as the vm does not have direct access to your hardware. You can connect a wlan usb thing to your vm. I have never used virtual box but I think the hypervisor is working as the one of vmware workstation.

do an iwconfig and have a look if there is an adapter with wireless extension

Code: [Select]

nobody@HomerJSimpson:~$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      no wireless extensions.

eth3      no wireless extensions.

eth4      no wireless extensions.

eth5      no wireless extensions.

vmnet1    no wireless extensions.

vmnet8    no wireless extensions.
as you can see I don't have one, too 

I have a Backtrack 5 R2 vm running on my machine and added a USB WLAN stick.

Code: [Select]

root@bt:~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any 
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
         
eth1      no wireless extensions.
as you can see there is one. If you can see your wifi stick with the iwconfig command but not with the ifconfig you need to set this interface as up:

Code: [Select]

ifconfig wlan1 up
if you have further questions on setting up your wifi network via command line just give me mail... I think we can get this to work. I like Debian very much and I'am working with it for quite some time now. I had a lot of problems, too 

[techb]

You can still get internet to the vm, by using virtual network. The vm connects to your actual laptop and core OS and the internet is shared. The only reason I. would see to have wlan in vm would be for wireless hacking. iirc you can still use stuff like nmap in vm just fine.

[Daemon]

You can still get internet to the vm, by using virtual network. The vm connects to your actual laptop and core OS and the internet is shared. The only reason I. would see to have wlan in vm would be for wireless hacking. iirc you can still use stuff like nmap in vm just fine.

So how would I go about that? Set it up using eth0? Or do I need to find something else for the virtual network?

[techb]

It should have done it automagicly, but I believe in the network settings of virtualbox use bride mode not host-only mode.


Google should turn up answers pretty quick.
This may help ya get started:
virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html

[Daemon]

UPDATE:


After 3 works of messing with virtualbox, and asking around for help (Thanks to 8xsde9e for that) We finally narrowed down the problem. The problem was virtualbox itself, the POS!!!
So I went and downloaded VMware instead, and got it working correctly on the first default install. Guess that solves it, i now prefer VMware


Thanks again for the all the replies guys