Running Ubuntu in VirtualBox and it won't detect a public WiFi network

I have a Macbook running Mac OS X, and I have Ubuntu running in VirtualBox. I am using a public WiFi network on my Macbook, but for some reason my Ubuntu virtual machine won't detect it. It was able to detect public WiFi networks before, but now it can't. The network just isn't showing up in the network menu. How can I fix this problem?

Solution 1:

Virtual Machines can't detect wireless networks if the Wireless Adapter is actually built into the host machine - this is because of the nature of how Virtual Networking works.

By the nature of what a Virtual Machine is, and what Virtual Network Devices are, it is impossible for the Macbook's internal wifi card to be 'bound' to the VM in such a way it would have wireless network connectivity.

YOu need to connect your Macbook to that network, then have the Ubuntu VM connect to the Internet over a "NAT" type network connection device or a "Bridged" type network connection that is set to 'bridge' with the wifi card (in the VM settings)

Okay, maybe I didn't phrase my problem very well. What I meant was, when I went to manually connect to the WiFi network within the VM, it wasn't listed as an option. Where it would normally allow me to connect to a WiFi network, it just says "Disconnected" and it's greyed out. – Zen Hacker

Unless you've done as I said in comments and gotten an external USB wireless adapter and correctly set up USB passthrough of that device to the Virtual Machine, you can't have the VM manage wireless connections at all, for the reasons explained above.