iwconfig indicates "no wireless extensions" for a working wifi card

Question

I was trying to set-up a virtual wifi access point. To find my interface name I used iwconfig and it showed no wireless extensions even though I am able use my wifi card.

using : Dell 1540 vostro Driver: Broadcom STA wireless driver (its an additional driver)

iwconfig result:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lspci result:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 05)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 05)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
12:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

Solution 1

You're trying to set yourself up as the VPN? Or are you trying to connect to one? Either way it looks like you are missing the ESSID. If you're trying to set up a VPN that's beyond the scope of my experience but there are various packages that will do that for you...not sure about anything that is open source however. Check the forums as that's probably a question that has been answered.

If you are trying to connect I believe the problem is you haven't input the SSID. I'm not aware you can connect to a VPN without doing so...it wouldn't be very private otherwise.

See here for setting up SSID etc.: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1062276

Solution 2

The lspci output shows that you have one RealTek Gigabit network card and one Broadcom Wifi card.

Your iwconfig output shows that besides the loopback interface you have two network interfaces : eth0 which is not a wireless card so I suppose it is the Realtek one and eth1 which is a wireless card, not connected to a Wifi AP when you ran iwconfig.

So your wireless card is called eth1.

Comments

[user130197]

Okay i fixed my problem it was related to the proprietary driver i first did lspci -k to check which driver my kernel it showed

[Ahmed Aeon Axan]

Can you please give more details about how you fixed it? I'm having the same problem. with Broadcom propeitery drivers.