[conspire] Party with iproute2 like it's 1999 (was: Systemd)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Texx (texxgadget at gmail.com):

> I have a new appreciation for Rick's frustration with systems.

(Typo.  You meant to type 'systemd'.)

> How quaint, ifconfig is no longer installed by default.

This fact actually has little or nothing to do with systemd.  (I'm
pretty sure nothing, but am hedging my bet with 'little or'.)

ifconfig is part of the antique net-tools package, which has been unmaintained
for a scarily long number of years[1] and is missing some functionality
provided by net-tools's modern replacement, the iproute2 package.
https://www.tecmint.com/deprecated-linux-networking-commands-and-their-replacements/
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/ReplacingNetstatNotBad

If you nonetheless still want ifconfig, netstat, arp,
iptunnel, nameif, and route, then install the net-tools package.  That
package is merely not installed by default (in general) on modern Linux
distributions.  (The iwconfig utility for wireless is likewise deemed a
bit obsolete and has a more-modern replacement, but isn't provided by
net-tools but rather by Wireless Tools for Linux.)

> I'm having bad luck bringing up a net interface.

Either learn to use the 'ip' command or install package net-tools.  Or
(better) _do both_.  In any event, I strongly recommend learning the new
iproute2 suite: ip, iw, ss, ifrename, etc.  The transition started
in 1999, over two decades ago.

(Yeah, yeah, you get a cue to be grumpy, dig in your heels, and say you
'don't have time and energy to learn all-new toolsets when the existing
ones were perfectly fine, dammit', here.  I would rather you sing that
bit in the shower and get over it.)

(Also, it's possible to bitch that the output of 'ip', etc. sucks and 
have a valid point, but, again, get over it. 
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17151046 )


It's possible you might also be hankering for ifup / ifdown / ifquery
(three hard links for one utility), which to my knowledge doesn't exist
for RHAT-like systems, having been written by Anthony Towns for Debian
(package ifupdown).  When ifup, etc., works OK, it's kind of magical,
but as a high-level tool sometimes it doesn't, and you end up needing to
go lower on the stack to your choice of iproute2 or net-tools utilities.


[1] Strictly speaking, net-tools isn't totally dead, just mostly.  After
about 15 years of zero maintenance, the net-tools maintainer forked the
abandoned net-tools codebase in December 2016 and started developing it again.
In so doing, he chose to change the output of most of the net-tools
commands, which implicitly will break scripts that rely on them, and IMO
furnished yet another reason to hurry up and get use to iproute2.