iproute2 is a collection of utilities for controlling
TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

 and UDP

User Datagram Protocol

The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

 IP

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 networking and traffic control

Network traffic control

In computer networking, network traffic control is the process of managing, prioritising, controlling or reducing the network traffic, particularly Internet bandwidth, used by network administrators, to reduce congestion, latency and packet loss. This is part of bandwidth management...

 in Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, in both IPv4

IPv4

Internet Protocol version 4 is the fourth revision in the development of the Internet Protocol and the first version of the protocol to be widely deployed. Together with IPv6, it is at the core of standards-based internetworking methods of the Internet...

 and IPv6

IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...

 networks. It is currently maintained by Stephen Hemminger. The original author, Alexey Kuznetsov, was responsible for the QoS

Quality of service

The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...

 implementation in the Linux kernel.

iproute2 is intended to replace an entire suite of standard Unix networking tools (often called “net-tools”) that were previously used for the tasks of configuring network interfaces, routing

Routing

Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...

 tables, and managing the ARP

Address Resolution Protocol

Address Resolution Protocol is a telecommunications protocol used for resolution of network layer addresses into link layer addresses, a critical function in multiple-access networks. ARP was defined by RFC 826 in 1982. It is Internet Standard STD 37...

 table, but which have not been developed since 2001.

Tools replaced by iproute2 are:

purpose	legacy "net-tools"	iproute2
Address and link configuration	ifconfig Ifconfig ifconfig is a system administration utility in Unix-like operating systems to configure, control, and query TCP/IP network interface parameters from a command line interface or in system configuration scripts...	ip addr, ip link
Routing tables	route Route (command) route is a command used to view and manipulate the TCP/IP routing table in both Unix-like and Windows operating systems. Manual manipulation of the routing table is characteristic of static routing....	ip route
Neighbors	arp	ip neigh
VLAN	vconfig	ip link
Tunnels	iptunnel	ip tunnel
Multicast	ipmaddr	ip maddr
Statistics	netstat Netstat netstat is a command-line tool that displays network connections , routing tables, and a number of network interface statistics...	ss

iproute2 unifies the syntax for these various commands, which evolved over many years of Unix development.

External links

• Linux Advanced Routing and Traffic Control HOWTO - A tutorial in exploring and using iproute2.
• IPROUTE2 Utility Suite Documentation - Complete official documentation.
• iproute2+tc notes - A collection of documents relating to iproute2 configuration and usage.
• Homepage for iproute2 - at Linux Foundation.
• Source code download directory
• Advanced tc and iproute2 tutorial for bandwidth restriction
• Advanced iproute2 tutorial for split route / multiple uplinks