wireless connection get listed as eth1 + UNIX + MacoX

Question

I'm not sure what is the best word to put forward for this since I'm connected to my wireless router and by that definition I was assuming the ifconfig to list my ip in wlan0 section but it display the my ip in en1 section

I'm pretty lame to understand this

Here my ifconfig output

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=2b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4>
    ether 3c:07:54:3d:e7:3e 
    media: autoselect (none)
    status: inactive
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether b8:8d:12:33:d2:d0 
    inet6 fe80::ba8d:12ff:fe33:d2d0%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5 
    inet 192.168.1.111 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    media: autoselect
    status: active
fw0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 4078
    lladdr a4:b1:97:ff:fe:96:28:e2 
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether 0a:8d:12:33:d2:d0 
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive
tun0: flags=8851<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    inet 10.0.15.2 --> 10.0.15.2 netmask 0xffffff00 
    open (pid 47846)

I see something similar behavior in an Ubuntu machine as well so any luck with eth0:1 display the wireless configuration

Any Reference for me to understand this

Answer 1

Different Unix-like OSes have different conventions for low-level interface naming.

OS X calls all Ethernet-like interfaces "enX". When 802.11 wireless Ethernet chipsets first appeared, they presented themselves to host OSes as Ethernet interfaces, because those OSes didn't have any special 802.11-specific support built-in. So on OS X, 802.11 wireless Ethernet interfaces were called enX just like wired Ethernet interfaces, and the name has stuck ever since.

Answer 2

I couldn't much any reference for standard "interface name" formats (like "en0", etc.). Perhaps like you, I've always assumed "en" was short for Ethernet, and perhaps it once was. However, wi-fi connections will show up as "en" interfaces too, at least on my Mac minis. If you use ifconfig -v, you'll see that it lists the "type" of connection, "Ethernet" or "Wi-Fi".