Task-centered iproute2 user guide
Task-centered iproute2 user guide
Overview of iproute2
About this document
Contributing
Typographic conventions
General notes
Abbreviating commands
Scripting considerations
IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
Show all addresses
Show addresses for a single interface
Show addresses only for running interfaces
Show only static or dynamic IPv6 addresses
Add an address to an interface
Add an address with a human-readable description
Delete an address from an interface
Remove all addresses from an interface
Change the primary address
Neighbor (ARP and NDP) tables
View neighbor tables
View neighbors for a specific interface
Flush table for an interface
Add a neighbor table entry
Delete a neighbor table entry
Network links
Show information about all links
Show information about a specific link
Bring a link up or down
Set human-readable link description
Add link alternative names
Rename an interface
Change link-layer address (usually MAC address)
Change link MTU
Delete a link
Enable or disable multicast on an interface
Enable or disable ARP on an interface
Create a VLAN interface
Create a QinQ interface (VLAN stacking)
Create a virtual MAC (MACVLAN) interface
Create a dummy interface
Create a bonding interface
Create an intermediate functional block interface
Create a pair of virtual ethernet devices
Link groups
Add an interface to a group
Remove an interface from a group
Assign a symbolic name to a group
Perform an operation on a group
View information about links from a specific group
Bridges
Bridge management utilities
Create a bridge
Add a bridge port
Delete a bridge port
View bridge port information
Isolate a bridge port
Create a VLAN-aware bridge
Create a VLAN access port
Create a VLAN trunk port
View bridge VLAN information
View bridge forwarding table
TUN and TAP devices
View TUN/TAP devices
Add a TUN/TAP device useable by the root user
Add a TUN/TAP device usable by an ordinary user
Add a TUN/TAP device using an alternate packet format
Add a TUN/TAP ignoring flow control
Delete a TUN/TAP device
Tunnel interfaces
Create an IPIP tunnel
Create an SIT (6in4) tunnel
Create an IPIP6 tunnel
Create an IP6IP6 tunnel
Create an L2 GRE tunnel device
Create a GRE tunnel
Create multiple GRE tunnels to the same endpoint
Create a point-to-multipoint GRE tunnel
Create a GRE tunnel over IPv6
Delete a tunnel
Modify a tunnel
View tunnel information
L2TPv3 pseudowires
Create an L2TPv3 tunnel over UDP
Create an L2TPv3 tunnel over IP
Create an L2TPv3 session
Delete an L2TPv3 session
Delete an L2TPv3 tunnel
View L2TPv3 tunnel information
View L2TPv3 session information
VXLAN
Create a unicast VXLAN link
Create a multicast VXLAN link
GENEVE
Create a unicast GENEVE link
Create a unicast GENEVE link with a custom UDP port
Create an externally managed GENEVE device
Routing tables
Connected routes
View all routes
View routes to a network and all its subnets
View routes to a network and all supernets
View routes to an exact subnet
View only the route actually used by the kernel
View route cache (pre 3.6 kernels only)
Add a route via a gateway
Add a route via an interface
Add a route without consistency check for gateway reachability
Change or replace a route
Delete a route
Default route
Blackhole routes
Other special routes
Routes with different metrics
Multipath routing
Policy-based routing
Create a policy route
View policy routes
General rule syntax
Create a rule to match a source network
Create a rule to match a destination network
Create a rule to match a ToS field value
Create a rule to match a firewall mark value
Create a rule to match an inbound interface
Create a rule to match an outbound interface
Create a rule to match a user id range
Set rule priority
Show all rules
Delete a rule
Delete all rules
VRF
Create a VRF
View configured VRFs
Bind an interface to a VRF
Remove an interface from a VRF
Run a command inside a VRF
Check if a process is running in a VRF
List processes running in a VRF
Network namespaces
Create a namespace
List existing namespaces
Delete a namespace
Run a process inside a namespace
List all processes assigned to a namespace
Identify process' primary namespace
Assign a network interface to a namespace
Connect one namespace to another
Monitor network namespace subsystem events
Multicast groups and routes
View multicast groups
Add a link-layer multicast address
View multicast routes
Network event monitoring
Monitor all events
Monitor specific events
Read a log file produced by rtmon
netconf (sysctl configuration viewing)
View sysctl configuration for all interfaces
View sysctl configuration for specific interface
Contributors
Copyright 2013-2025, Daniil Baturin and contributors.
Last modified: 2025-09-17
# Overview of iproute2
iproute2 is the Linux networking toolkit that replaced legacy tools<br>(ifconfig, vconfig, brctl, route,...