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I have a virtual machine installed on my Windows 8.1 laptop with Ubuntu installed on it, but when I open the Network menu it doesn't show any wireless networks. How do I connect Ubuntu in my virtual machine to a wireless network that my host machine is detecting?

Braiam
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Devon Davis
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5 Answers5

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What you have to do is:

  1. Open virtual machine Settings-> Network, then choose adapter1 to NAT.
  2. Now open Network and Sharing-Center in Windows, then go to change Adapter settings, then disable the virtual box host only adapter.
  3. close the window and now you should be able to use internet in ubuntu.
Guru Brahma Eerla
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What you have to do is:

  1. Open Settings-Network, then choose adapter1 to NAT.
  2. Open Network and Sharing-Center in Windows, then go to change Adapter settings, then disable the virtual box host only adapter.
v2r
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holy
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Is simple. You can't. Virtual machines can't expose the physical wireless cards. All of that is using a virtualization layer. What you can do is buying a USB dongle card instead.

Unfortunately no virtualization software allows for direct access to hardware devices like that.

Compare VirtualBox with VMware Fusion and Parallels for Mac. All 3 of those programs behave the same way. The only devices that can be directly accessed are usb devices. Everything else is abstracted though the virtualization engine. (Though you could argue that the vm has lower level access to cd rom's and storage devices).

I wish I could give you a better answer, than simply to buy a usb wireless card.

Some improvements have been made at the hardware level to support hardware passthrough. For example, Intel has released processors that have advanced virtualization features. You can in theory, connect multiple video cards in your computer, and assign one of the video cards to a Virtual Machine. That VM would then have full control over the graphics card.

Intel calls the technology VT-d
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/06/25/understanding-vt-d-intel-virtualization-technology-for-directed-io

(https://superuser.com/a/624806/235569)

Community
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Braiam
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  • I wonder if a USB Ethernet stick can be accessed? I will have to try. – Phil Lawlor Nov 19 '13 at 17:46
  • Hmm... contradictory answers on a highly viewed question. It is impossible or not? I have tried around, now and then, with usb stick and all, and could not do it. The thing is, my computer ONLY has a wifi connection, period... – B Furtado Jun 22 '20 at 19:01
  • @BFurtado technically, it's possible, but depends heavily on your motherboard capabilities and whenever you enable the specific nobs. I will readdress the answer is a while, ping me if I haven't done so by tomorrow. – Braiam Jun 22 '20 at 19:17
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You can! I just did! If you use a USB ethernet stick. In VirtualBox, with the VM shut down, set the USB filter to include your USB wireless device. Then on VM startup it will be available only to your VM. Done!

Phil Lawlor
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I could not find out how to disable the virtual box host only adaoter. i followed these steps Open Settings-Network, then choose adapter1 to NAT. Open Network and Sharing-Center in Windows, then go to change Adapter settings

LTpy
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