18 Feb 2026 10:59pm GMT

This is also known as: "ifconfig is not installed by default anymore, how do I do this only with the ip command?"

I have been slowly training my brain to use the new commands but I sometimes forget some. So, here's a couple of equivalence from the old package to net-tools the new iproute2, about 10 years late:

Another trick

Also note that I often alias ip to ip -br -c as it provides a much prettier output.

Compare, before:

anarcat@angela:~> ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    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
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
    altname wlp166s0
    altname wlx8cf8c57333c7
4: virbr0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.122.1/24 brd 192.168.122.255 scope global virbr0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
20: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.0.108/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute eth0
       valid_lft 40699sec preferred_lft 40699sec

After:

anarcat@angela:~> ip -br -c a
lo               UNKNOWN        127.0.0.1/8 ::1/128 
wlan0            DOWN           
virbr0           DOWN           192.168.122.1/24 
eth0             UP             192.168.0.108/24 

I don't even need to redact MAC addresses! It also affects the display of the other commands, which look similarly neat.

Also imagine pretty colors above.

Finally, I don't have a cheat sheet for iw vs iwconfig (from wireless-tools) yet. I just use NetworkManager now and rarely have to mess with wireless interfaces directly.

Background and history

For context, there are traditionally two ways of configuring the network in Linux:

• the old way, with commands like ifconfig, arp, route and netstat, those are part of the net-tools package
• the new way, mostly (but not entirely!) wrapped in a single ip command, that is the iproute2 package

It seems like the latter was made "important" in Debian in 2008, which means every release since Debian 5 "lenny" has featured the ip command.

The former net-tools package was demoted in December 2016 which means every release since Debian 9 "stretch" ships without an ifconfig command unless explicitly requested. Note that this was mentioned in the release notes in a similar (but, IMHO, less useful) table.

(Technically, the net-tools Debian package source still indicates it is Priority: important but that's a bug I have just filed.)

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the name iproute is hilarious if you are a bilingual french speaker: it can be read as "I proute" which can be interpreted as "I fart" as "prout!" is the sound a fart makes. The fact that it's called iproute2 makes it only more hilarious.

18 Feb 2026 4:30pm GMT

The FAI.me service has reached another milestone:

The 42.000th job was submitted via the web interface since the beginning of this service in 2017.

The idea was to provide a simple web interface for end users for creating the configs for the fully automatic installation with only minimal questions and without knowing the syntax of the configuration files. Thanks a lot for using this service and for all your feedback.

The next job can be yours!

P.S.: I like to get more feedback for the FAI.me service. What do you like most? What's missing? Do you have any success story how you use the customized ISO for your deployment? Please fill out the FAI questionaire or sent feedback via email to fai.me@fai-project.org

About FAI.me

FAI.me is the service for building your own customized images via a web interface. You can create an installation or live ISO or a cloud image. For Debian, multiple release versions can be chosen, as well as installations for Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Desktop, or Linux Mint.

Multiple options are available like selecting different desktop environments, the language and keyboard and adding a user with a password. Optional settings include adding your own package list, choosing a backports kernel, adding a postinst script and adding a ssh public key, choosing a partition layout and some more.

18 Feb 2026 2:55pm GMT