iproute and net-tools

Posted: 2017-09-14 18:01:52 by Alasdair Keyes

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For those Linux admins that have been doing their thing for at least 10 years, you will be very familiar with the standard networking tools ifconfig, netstat etc from the net-tools package. As you also know these are no longer being developed and have been deprecated in favour of a newer iproute2 tool set.

This has been the case for many years, but I bet you still type ifconfig and route don't you?... Years of muscle memory is a hard habit to break.

Although the much more recent iproute2 range of tools has been available for a long time, I still find myself using the old ones as well. When I catch myself doing that, I force myself to lookup how to do the same thing in the newer tools. I'm slowly getting there but it'll take many years yet.

As a handy guide, I was passed this by a friend. It's most useful for those trying to transition and it's well worth a bookmark.

https://dougvitale.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/deprecated-linux-networking-commands-and-their-replacements/

As you transition, it's well worth remembering to update any scripts you have to use the new ones. There might come a time when net-tools is completely removed and you'll want to make sure your trusty helper scripts don't fail you!

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