Two network interfaces (wlan0 + wlan1) for the same wifi USB adapter ?

[fcukew888]

Hello,

I am using KL 2020 with Gnome 3.36 in a VirtualBox virtual machine on my Macbook Pro
All is working just fine so far,
I am using a USB adapter TP-LINK TL-WN722N and since yesterday I noticed that when I do an ifconfig, I get 2 wifi network interfaces (wlan0 and wlan1) for the same adapter. Both have the same MAC address except for the first 3 sets of digits:
18:d6:c7 for wlan0
1a:d6:c7 for wlan1
Only one (wlan0) is connected to the wifi network. The other is not.
I attached a couple of pictures for your review.
How is that possible? Can I remove the wlan1?
Any help will be appreciated,
Thanks much in advance
Eric

[muroga]

The second interface is likely for wifi-direct aka wifi-p2p. The second character in mac address#2 is a dead giveaway for how most drivers setup the p2p interface when the driver is compiled to run in concurrent mode(1station-mode interface + 1p2p or ap interface). You can always bring down the interface but if my assumption is correct and it is a the driver in concurrent mode you'd have to modify the driver source appropriately then recompile.