Article URL: https://baturin.org/docs/iproute2/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49047884 Points: 17 # Comments: 0

iproute2 is the Linux networking toolkit that replaced legacy tools (ifconfig, vconfig, brctl, route, arp etc.). Those tools are only kept for compatibility with old scripts and do not provide access to a lot of newer networking features of the Linux kernel. It originally written by Alex Kuznetsov and is now maintained by Stephen Hemminger. Most of the networking functionality is unified in the ip command. There’s also tc for managing traffic policies (QoS), bridge for managing software bridge interfaces, and ss (a netstat replacement). Those commands are usually shipped in a package called iproute2 or iproute. Most Linux distributions install it by default these days. The ip command is sometimes installed in /sbin and thus may not be in the $PATH of unprivileged users by default. Historically, documentation has been a weak side of iproute2. The official man pages list available options but don’t give almost any usage examples. That need has been addressed by third-party documentation. This document aims to provide a comprehensive but easy to use guide to the ip and bridge commands, and some information about ss. Documenting tc in this style would be a separate big project. The document is task-centered: it tells you how to do different tasks using iproute2 commands instead of listing available subcommands. This document is maintained by Daniil Baturin and distributed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 — a strong copyleft, free culture license.