ifconfig

[faeychild]

Just discovered it's deprecated.
Clearly I haven't used it for a while and have been living under a rock.

for anyone trapped in the time warp it's now -

ip addr show

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by faeychild
Just discovered it's deprecated.
Clearly I haven't used it for a while and have been living under a rock.
for anyone trapped in the time warp it's now -
ip addr show

And if you're swamped by that overly-complex display, try

ip -brief addr

(A tip of the hat to whoever showed us this one recently)

[faeychild]

Post by Charlie Gibbs
And if you're swamped by that overly-complex display, try
ip -brief addr

stunningly brief :-)

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Charlie Gibbs
And if you're swamped by that overly-complex display, try
ip -brief addr

And if you’re trying to parse the output in a script, try adding the
“-json” option for more structured output.

[Jeremy Brubaker]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Charlie Gibbs
And if you're swamped by that overly-complex display, try
ip -brief addr

And if you’re trying to parse the output in a script, try adding the
“-json” option for more structured output.

File that one under "Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago". Thanks very
much for that type.

[Jeremy Brubaker]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Charlie Gibbs
And if you're swamped by that overly-complex display, try
ip -brief addr

And if you’re trying to parse the output in a script, try adding the
“-json” option for more structured output.

File that one under "Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago". Thanks very
much for that tip.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Jeremy Brubaker
File that one under "Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago".

It’s in the man page <https://manpages.debian.org/8/ip.8.en.html>.

[Jeremy Brubaker]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Jeremy Brubaker
File that one under "Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago".

It’s in the man page <https://manpages.debian.org/8/ip.8.en.html>.

Would that I could read **all** the manpages **and** retain everything. :)

[faeychild]

Post by Jeremy Brubaker

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Jeremy Brubaker
File that one under "Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago".

It’s in the man page <https://manpages.debian.org/8/ip.8.en.html>.

Would that I could read **all** the manpages **and** retain everything. :)

And comprehend. Would that not be a stunning achievement.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by faeychild
And comprehend. Would that not be a stunning achievement.

It’s a skill you can practise.

Also, search functions are useful.

[Marco Moock]

Post by faeychild
Just discovered it's deprecated.
Clearly I haven't used it for a while and have been living under a rock.

It is part for ~20 years.
Some distributions now don't ship ifconfig/route/arp anymore (by
default). Most still provide the packages to install.

For myself, I prefer ip, but maybe because I learned Linux in 2015 and
still ongoing. For me, ip is more reasonable structured.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Marco Moock
For myself, I prefer ip, but maybe because I learned Linux in 2015 and
still ongoing. For me, ip is more reasonable structured.

Here is a blog post on some of the issues why the old-style commands
don’t really work well any more: the way they get info from the kernel
is inefficient, and their traditional function also no longer reflects
the reality of how the network stack works
<https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/ReplacingNetstatNotBad>.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
Here is a blog post on some of the issues why the old-style commands
don’t really work well any more: the way they get info from the
kernel is inefficient, and their traditional function also no longer
reflects the reality of how the network stack works

I largely agree with the statement. I've not yet looked at the URL.

What I don't understand is why nobody has written a wrapper that sites
in front of `ip` et al. to be called by the more traditional `ifconfig`
/ `route` et al.

Sure, there are differences. But Unix like OSs have used `ifconfig` for
40+ years to configure the network interface. I see zero reason to not
provide basic functionality in a backward compatible way.

I embraced `ip` 10-15 years ago. I've found many things that I can't do
with `ifconfig` which must be done with `ip`.

Conversely I've found a few things that must be done with `ifconfig` as
`ip` doesn't support them, mostly with non-IP protocols; IPX / DECnet / etc.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by Grant Taylor

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
Here is a blog post on some of the issues why the old-style commands
don’t really work well any more: the way they get info from the
kernel is inefficient, and their traditional function also no longer
reflects the reality of how the network stack works

I largely agree with the statement. I've not yet looked at the URL.
What I don't understand is why nobody has written a wrapper that sites
in front of `ip` et al. to be called by the more traditional
`ifconfig` / `route` et al.

I’m not sure how that would differ from the ifconfig that exists now.

Post by Grant Taylor
Sure, there are differences. But Unix like OSs have used `ifconfig`
for 40+ years to configure the network interface. I see zero reason
to not provide basic functionality in a backward compatible way.

Again, how would that be any different from the ifconfig that exists
now? AFAIK it still works as well as it always did[1], it just can’t
manage some of the more modern stuff.

[1] possibly better; it seems to know about IPv6 now and if memory
serves, it didn’t use to

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Richard Kettlewell
I’m not sure how that would differ from the ifconfig that exists now.

I read somewhere that the way that ifconfig / route / et al. work
interfacing with the kernel differently and that these different methods
are deprecated and will eventually be removed.

If that's true, then creating an ifconfig / route / et al. wrapper
around iproute2 using the new kernel interfaces would probably be better
in the long run.

Post by Richard Kettlewell
AFAIK it still works as well as it always did[1], it just can’t
manage some of the more modern stuff.

It has more to do with the back end in kernel space than it does the
front end in user space.

Post by Richard Kettlewell
[1] possibly better; it seems to know about IPv6 now and if memory
serves, it didn’t use to

I believe that ifconfig / route / et al. learned how to support IPv6
before iproute2 was a thing. But maybe I'm mis-remembering.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Grant Taylor
If that's true, then creating an ifconfig / route / et al. wrapper
around iproute2 using the new kernel interfaces would probably be better
in the long run.

The only reason it hasn’t been done is that nobody cares enough to do it.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by Grant Taylor

Post by Richard Kettlewell
I’m not sure how that would differ from the ifconfig that exists now.

I read somewhere that the way that ifconfig / route / et al. work
interfacing with the kernel differently

Yes, ifconfig uses ioctl, ip uses a netlink socket.

Post by Grant Taylor
and that these different methods are deprecated and will eventually be
removed.

That hasn’t happened yet and in any case is an implementation detail; if
anyone cared to keep ifconfig &c going after that point, they could be
modified to use netlink instead.

(Linux has a fairly strong tradition against breaking the user-facing
API, but I don’t know if an exception exists in this case.)

Post by Grant Taylor

Post by Richard Kettlewell
AFAIK it still works as well as it always did[1], it just can’t
manage some of the more modern stuff.

It has more to do with the back end in kernel space than it does the
front end in user space.

I’ve no idea what this is supposed to mean. If you want it to provide
basic functionality in a backward compatible way it doesn’t matter what
kernel API it uses. At any rate, I think it does do that.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Grant Taylor
What I don't understand is why nobody has written a wrapper that sites
in front of `ip` et al. to be called by the more traditional `ifconfig`
/ `route` et al.

Unnecessary, given you can still install the old commands side by side
with the new ones, and they still work the same old, albeit inefficient,
way, to give the same old output.

[Carlos E.R.]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Grant Taylor
What I don't understand is why nobody has written a wrapper that sites
in front of `ip` et al. to be called by the more traditional `ifconfig`
/ `route` et al.

Unnecessary, given you can still install the old commands side by side
with the new ones, and they still work the same old, albeit inefficient,
way, to give the same old output.

I'm not sure of that.

I can install the old commands, but I get a warning that they may stop
working one day.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by faeychild
Just discovered it's deprecated.
Clearly I haven't used it for a while and have been living under a rock.
for anyone trapped in the time warp it's now -
ip addr show

Some common equivalents (or near-equivalents):

Show all network interfaces--old way:

ifconfig -a

New way:

ip address show

Show routing table--old way:

route -n

New way:

ip route show

Show ARP cache--old way:

arp -n

New way:

ip neigh show

Show listening TCP ports--old way:

netstat -lt

New way:

ss -lt

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by faeychild
Just discovered it's deprecated.

ifconfig from GNU inetutils is still maintained and works fine.

[Antti Talsta]

Post by faeychild
for anyone trapped in the time warp it's now -
ip addr show

Or just

ip a