Linux IP Command and Examples

NAME
ip – show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels

SYNOPSIS

ip [ OPTIONS ] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }

ip [ -force ] -batch filename

OBJECT := { link | addr | addrlabel | route | rule | neigh | ntable | tunnel | tuntap | maddr | mroute | mrule | monitor | xfrm | netns | l2tp
| tcp_metrics }

OPTIONS := { -V[ersion] | -s[tatistics] | -r[esolve] | -f[amily] { inet | inet6 | ipx | dnet | link } | -o[neline] | -n[etns] name }

OPTIONS
-V, -Version
Print the version of the ip utility and exit.

-b, -batch <FILENAME>
Read commands from provided file or standard input and invoke them. First failure will cause termination of ip.

-force Don’t terminate ip on errors in batch mode. If there were any errors during execution of the commands, the application return code will
be non zero.

-s, -stats, -statistics
Output more information. If the option appears twice or more, the amount of information increases. As a rule, the information is sta‐
tistics or some time values.

-d, -details
Output more detailed information.

-l, -loops <COUNT>
Specify maximum number of loops the ‘ip addr flush’ logic will attempt before giving up. The default is 10. Zero (0) means loop until
all addresses are removed.

-f, -family <FAMILY>
Specifies the protocol family to use. The protocol family identifier can be one of inet, inet6, bridge, ipx, dnet or link. If this
option is not present, the protocol family is guessed from other arguments. If the rest of the command line does not give enough infor‐
mation to guess the family, ip falls back to the default one, usually inet or any. link is a special family identifier meaning that no
networking protocol is involved.

-4 shortcut for -family inet.

-6 shortcut for -family inet6.

-B shortcut for -family bridge.

-D shortcut for -family decnet.

-I shortcut for -family ipx.

-0 shortcut for -family link.

-o, -oneline
output each record on a single line, replacing line feeds with the ‘\’ character. This is convenient when you want to count records with
wc(1) or to grep(1) the output.

-r, -resolve
use the system’s name resolver to print DNS names instead of host addresses.

-n, -netns <NETNS>
switches ip to the specified network namespace NETNS. Actually it just simplifies executing of:

ip netns exec NETNS ip [ OPTIONS ] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }

to

ip -n[etns] NETNS [ OPTIONS ] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }

IP – COMMAND SYNTAX
OBJECT
address
– protocol (IP or IPv6) address on a device.

addrlabel
– label configuration for protocol address selection.

l2tp – tunnel ethernet over IP (L2TPv3).

link – network device.

maddress
– multicast address.

monitor
– watch for netlink messages.

mroute – multicast routing cache entry.

mrule – rule in multicast routing policy database.

neighbour
– manage ARP or NDISC cache entries.

netns – manage network namespaces.

ntable – manage the neighbor cache’s operation.

route – routing table entry.

rule – rule in routing policy database.

tcp_metrics/tcpmetrics
– manage TCP Metrics

tunnel – tunnel over IP.

tuntap – manage TUN/TAP devices.

xfrm – manage IPSec policies.

The names of all objects may be written in full or abbreviated form, for exampe address can be abbreviated as addr or just a.

COMMAND
Specifies the action to perform on the object. The set of possible actions depends on the object type. As a rule, it is possible to add,
delete and show (or list ) objects, but some objects do not allow all of these operations or have some additional commands. The help command
is available for all objects. It prints out a list of available commands and argument syntax conventions.

If no command is given, some default command is assumed. Usually it is list or, if the objects of this class cannot be listed, help.

HISTORY
ip was written by Alexey N. Kuznetsov and added in Linux 2.2.