Linux - The ip command

10.2.3.1. The ip command

The distribution-specific scripts and graphical tools are front-ends to ip (or ifconfig and route on older systems) to display and configure the kernel's networking configuration.

The ip command is used for assigning IP addresses to interfaces, for setting up routes to the Internet and to other networks, for displaying TCP/IP configurations etcetera.

The following commands show IP address and routing information:

benny@home benny> ip addr show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 brd 127.255.255.255 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 100
    link/ether 00:50:bf:7e:54:9a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.42.15/24 brd 192.168.42.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::250:bfff:fe7e:549a/10 scope link 

benny@home benny> ip route show
192.168.42.0/24 dev eth0  scope link 
127.0.0.0/8 dev lo  scope link 
default via 192.168.42.1 dev eth0

Things to note:

two network interfaces, even on a system that has only one network interface card: "lo" is the local loop, used for internal network communication; "eth0" is a common name for a real interface. Do not ever change the local loop configuration, or your machine will start mallfunctioning! Wireless interfaces are usually defined as "wlan0"; modem interfaces as "ppp0", but there might be other names as well.
IP addresses, marked with "inet": the local loop always has 127.0.0.1, the physical interface can have any other combination.
The hardware address of your interface, which might be required as part of the authentication procedure to connect to a network, is marked with "ether". The local loop has 6 pairs of all zeros, the physical loop has 6 pairs of hexadecimal characters, of which the first 3 pairs are vendor-specific.