Commonly Used Network Commands

A List of Commonly used Command Line Tools

(Note ifconfig, route, mii-tool, nslookup commands are obsolete)

Many of these tools provide good information about your connection and can help you diagnose issues rather quickly. All of these commands are to be run from from a terminal session and many require root rights and path. Simply open a terminal by right clicking on the Desktop and selecting "Open Terminal" or locate the Terminal icon from the Menu. Then type su -, and press enter key (which is required after every command) to become root with root path.

Networking Command	Example(s)	Details
	Networking Status Tools
ethtool	ethtool eth0	Show status of ethernet interface eth0
	ethtool -i eth0	Print the driver being used for eth0
	ethtool --change eth0 autoneg off speed 100 duplex full	Manually set ethernet interface speed
mii-tool	mii-tool eth0	Shows connectivity between system and switch and what link speed
ifconfig	ifconfig eth0	Show IP address and conectivity info. for eth0
ping	ping 1.2.3.4	ping host 1.2.3.4, will return replies (press ctrl+C to cancel)
iptables	iptables -L	Print the firewall rules
	Wireless Tools
iwconfig	iwconfig eth1	Show status of wireless interface eth1
	iwconfig eth1 rate 1Mb/s fixed	Manually set wireless interface speed
	iwconfig eth1 essid linksys	Manually set the wireless network SSID to linksys
	iwconfig eth1 enc feedfeedfe	Manually set the encryption to the 64-bit HEX key feedfeedfe
iwlist	iwlist scan	List wireless networks in range
	IP Address - Setting IP Tools
ifdown	ifdown eth0	Brings down a device if running
ifup	ifup eth0	Brings up an interface and IP
dhclient	dhclient eth1	Assign an IP Address via DHCP to eth1
ip	ip link show	List network interfaces
	ip link set dev eth0 name wan	Rename interface eth0 to wan
	ip link set dev eth0 up	Bring interface eth0 up (or down)
	ip addr show	List addresses for interfaces
	ip addr add 1.2.3.4/24 brd + dev eth0	Add (or del) ip and mask (255.255.255.0)
	ip route show	List routing table
	ip route add default via 1.2.3.254	Set default gateway to 1.2.3.254
text setup	setup	This starts a text based setup tool (setuptool rpm must be installed)
system-config-network-tui	system-config-network-tui	Starts text networking config tool
system-config-network-gui	system-config-network	With or without the -gui starts the graphical net tool
service network restart	service network restart	Restarts the major networking components
service NetworkManager restart	service NetworkManager restart	restarts the main networking manager
	Hostname and IP Lookup
host	host w3.ibm.com	Lookup DNS ip address for name or vice versa
hostname -i	Lookup local ip address (equivalent to host `hostname`)
whois	whois w3.ibm.com	Lookup whois info for hostname or ip address
nslookup	nslookup w3.ibm.com	get ip or host info for a host
netstat	netstat -tupl	List internet services on a system (UDP and TCP)
	netstat -ntlup	List internet services listening on system
	netstat -tup	List active connections to/from system
	Windows networking (Samba)
smbtree	smbtree	Find windows machines. See also findsmb
nmblookup	nmblookup -A 1.2.3.4	Find the windows (netbios) name associated with ip address 1.2.3.4
smbclient	smbclient -L windows_box	List shares on windows machine or samba server
mount windows	mount -t smbfs -o fmask=666,guest //windows_box/share /mnt/share	Mount a windows share
send a mssg.	echo 'message' | smbclient -M windows_box	Send popup to windows machine (off by default in XP sp2)