iproute2

Resources

iproute2 is a tool developed to unify network interface configuration, routing, and tunneling for Linux systems.

iproute2 provides the ip command for this purpose.

Usage

Listing interfaces

Either ip link (shorthand) or ip link show (longhand) work for displaying the interface links:

user $ip link

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:22:68:13:da:7d brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1e:65:6b:ef:ca brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Showing IP addressing

Either ip addr (shorthand) or ip address show (longhand) work for displaying the interfaces with assigned IP addresses:

user $ip addr

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:22:68:13:da:7d brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1e:65:6b:ef:ca brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.0.2.10/24 brd 192.0.2.255 scope global wlan0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Activating interfaces

Interface links can be activated and deactivated (respectively) using the set subcommand:

root #

ip link set eth0 down

root #

ip link set eth0 up

Configuring IP addressing

Using the IPv4 protocol:

Adding an IP address to the eth0 interface:

root #ip addr add 192.0.2.11/24 dev eth0

Removing an IP address from the wlan0 interface:

root #ip addr del 192.0.2.10/24 dev wlan0

Using the IPv6 protocol:

Add IPv6 address to wlan0 interface

root #ip -6 addr add 2001:db8::10/64 dev wlan0

Remove IPv6 address from eth0 interface

root #ip -6 addr del 2001:db8::11/64 dev eth0

Adding default route

Using the IPv4 protocol:

root #ip route add default via 192.0.2.1

Using IPv6 protocol:

root #ip -6 route add default via fe80::1

Showing routing table

Display the IPv4 routing table information:

user $ip route

default via 192.0.2.1 dev eth0  metric 2 
127.0.0.0/8 via 127.0.0.1 dev lo 
192.0.2.0/24 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.0.2.11

Display the IPv6 routing table information:

user $ip -6 route

2001:db8::10/64 dev wlan0  proto kernel  metric 2003  mtu 1492
fe80::/64 dev wlan0  proto kernel  metric 256  pref medium
ff00::/8 dev wlan0  metric 256 
default via fe80::1 dev wlan0  metric 2003  mtu 1492

iproute2 for net-tools swappers

The following table can be used as a reference point for substituting commands from the sys-apps/net-tools package for the equivalent sys-apps/iproute2 commands:

net-tools to iproute2 command equivalents
net-tools	iproute2
ifconfig (interface list)	ip link
ifconfig (ip configuration)	ip addr
ifconfig (interface stats)	ip -s link
route	ip route
arp	ip neigh
brctl addbr	ip link add ... type bridge
brctl addif	ip link set master
netstat	ss
netstat -M	conntrack -L
netstat -g	ip maddr
netstat -i	ip -s link
netstat -r	ip route
iptunnel	ip tunnel
ipmaddr	ip maddr
tunctl	ip tuntap (since iproute-2.6.34)
(none) for interface rename	ip link set dev OLDNAME name NEWNAME
brctl	bridge (since iproute-3.5.0)

External resources