How do I enable Wmaster ib Hardy 8.04

[Rafiq Hajat]

Hi everyone,
tis me again...sorry to be such a pain in the ass!
I ran an ifconfig and got the following

rafiq at rafiq-laptop:~$ sudo ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1a:4b:8a:b4:55  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Base address:0x5000 Memory:dc500000-dc520000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2168 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2168 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:109038 (106.4 KB)  TX bytes:109038 (106.4 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:bf:6c:0e:08  
          inet addr:192.168.0.100  Bcast:192.168.0.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:bfff:fe6c:e08/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:15261 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12759 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:19384188 (18.4 MB)  TX bytes:1251904 (1.1 MB)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr
00-1C-BF-6C-0E-08-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Now I've often come across these references to Wireless master or
wmaster and have seen it appearing above. It seems dormant but makes me
wonder what it actually ought to be doing and how do I activate it -
should I choose to do so?
Your guidance is, as always, deeply appreciated.

Rafiq Hajat
Executive Director
The Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI)
P. O. Box E14,
Post Dot Net - Blantyre
Malawi
Mobile: +265 999 968800
www.ipimalawi.org