# are these all NICs?

## manoeuvrable

Hello everyone.I'm a novice here.

I am an Arch user for almost 1 year.It's the first time for me to install gentoo on my Acer Aspire 4736G laptop.

Following the guide book, I have got a basic gentoo without X.

TO be specific,my laptop only own 2 NICs,one is wireless Intel 5100 AGN,another is a 100Mbps wire NIC.

What confuses me a lot is that, when i run the command 'ifconfig' in the shell, I get these things:

```
hwsim0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500

        unspec 12-00-00-00-00-00-B0-84-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  txqueuelen 0  (UNSPEC)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536

        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0

        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>

        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

sit0: flags=193<UP,RUNNING,NOARP>  mtu 1480

        inet6 ::127.0.0.1  prefixlen 96  scopeid 0x90<compat,host>

        sit  txqueuelen 0  (IPv6-in-IPv4)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500

        ether 02:00:00:00:00:00  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan1: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500

        ether 02:00:00:00:01:00  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

```

Are hwsim0,sit0,wlan0,wlan1 all Network Interface Cards?????  Any help will be appreciated!!!! Thank you.

----------

## khayyam

manoeuvrable ...

You have CONFIG_MAC80211_HWSIM enabled in your kernel, this is a software simulator of 802.11 radios, hence the hwsim0 (and probably wlan1). The 'sit0' interface is a "simple internet transition" interface and is a device used for encapsulating ipv6 in ipv4, you can disable it in modprobe.d or by disabling CONFIG_IPV6_SIT in the kernel.

/etc/modprobe.d/aliases

```
#alias net-pf-10 ipv6

alias net-pf-10 off
```

or blacklist the module ...

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

```
blacklist sit
```

The 'lo' is the 'loopback' and is required for normal functioning. I don't see your wired ethernet device, perhaps the driver/module isn't loaded, or available.

HTH & best ... khay

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## szatox

Actually with that weird MAC wlan0 doesn't seem to be a device either.

also, run 'ifconfig -a' to list all interfaces rather than only those active

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## khayyam

 *szatox wrote:*   

> Actually with that weird MAC wlan0 doesn't seem to be a device either.

 

szatox ... yeah, I didn't notice that. Its probably the outcome of having CONFIG_MAC80211_HWSIM enabled, I've not used this feature but as its simulating radio it probably subsumes the physical wireless device.

best ... khay

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