The net-tools has been deprecated and plans to obsolete was stated from debian-devel mailing list around 2009 (https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/03/msg00780.html ) . As per the post, it says:
It doesnt support many of the modern features of the linux kernel, the interface is far from optimal and difficult to use in automatisation, and also, it hasn’t got much love in the last years.
On the other side, the iproute suite, introduced around the 2.2 kernel line, has both a much better and consistent interface, is more powerful, and is almost ten years old, so nobody would say it’s untested.
So it’s time to familiarize and start using iproute over the net-tools. Here’s the table comparison of commands for your reference.
| NET-TOOLS | IPROUTE | Description |
| ifconfig | ip link | Network device configuration |
| ifconfig -h | ip help | Print help |
| ifconfig -a | ip a | Display all interfaces |
| ifconfig -a | ip -4 a | Display for family inet (ipv4) |
| ifconfig -a | ip -6 a | Display for family inet6 (ipv6) |
| ifconfig [int_name] | ip a show [int_name] | Display single interface |
| ifconfig [int_name] down | ip link set [int_name] down | Shutdown interface |
| ifconfig [int_name] up | ip link set [int_name] up | Activate interface |
| ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:aa | ip link set dev eth0 address 00:00:00:00:00:aa | Change MAC address |
| ifconfig eth0 down nameif eth1 00:00:00:00:00:aa ifconfig eth1 up |
ip link set dev eth0 down ip link set dev eth0 name eth1 ip link set dev eth1 up |
Rename interface (e.g eth0 to eth1) |
| ifconfig eth0Â delete 192.168.0.100 | ip addr del 192.168.0.100/24 dev eth0 | Delete IPv4 address |
| ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.100 netmask 255.255.255.0 | ip addr add 192.168.0.100/24 dev eth0 | Add IPv4 address |
| ifconfig eth1 inet6 add 2002:bbaa:0:f000::1/64 | ip -6 addr add 2002:bbaa:0:f000::1/64 dev eth1 | Add IPv6 address |
| ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 | ip addr del 192.168.0.100/24 dev eth0 | Clear associated IP in interface |
| ifconfig eth0:0 192.168.0.100 netmask 255.255.255.0 | ip addr add 192.168.0.100/24 dev eth0 label eth0:0 | Create an alias in interface |
| ifconfig eth0:0 down | ip addr del 192.168.0.100/24 dev eth0 | Delete an alias |
| ifconfig eth0 mtu 1500 | ip link set dev eth0 mtu 1500 | Changeinterface MTU |
| ifconfig eth0 arp | ip link set dev eth0 arp on | Enable ARP protocol |
| ifconfig eth0 -arp | ip link set dev eth0 arp off | Disable ARP protocol |
| ifconfig eth0 promisc | ip link set dev eth0 promisc on | Enable promiscuous mode |
| ifconfig eth0 -promisc | ip link set dev eth0 promisc off | Disable promiscuous mode |
| ifconfig eth0 multicast | ip link set dev eth0 multicast on | Enable Multicast |
| ifconfig eth0 -multicast | ip link set dev eth0 multicast off | Disable Multicast |
| ifconfig eth0 allmulti | ip link set dev eth0 allmulticast on | Enable All-Multicast |
| ifconfig eth0 -allmulti | ip link set dev eth0 allmulticast off | Disable All-Multicast |
| route -n | ip route | Display routing table |
| route add default gw 192.168.0.1 | ip route add default via 192.168.0.1 | Configure Default gateway |
| route del default gw 192.168.0.1 | ip route del default via 192.168.0.1 | Delete default gateway |
| route add -net 192.168.110.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.0.1 dev eth1 | ip route add 192.168.110.0/24 via 192.168.0.1 dev eth1 | Add static route |
| route del -net 192.168.110.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 | ip route del 192.168.110.0/24 | Remove static route |
| arp -a | ip neigh | Display ARP |
| arp -v | ip -s neigh | Display ARP statistics |
| vconfig add eth0 10 | ip link add eth0.10 link eth0 type vlan id 10 | Create VLAN interface |
| vconfig rem eth0.10 | ip link del dev eth0.10 | Remove VLAN interface |
| netstat | ss | Print socket statistics |
| netstat -l | ss -l | Display only listening sockets |
| netstat -nr | ip route show | Display routing table |
| netstat -g | ip maddr | Display Multicast address |
| ipmaddr | ip maddress | multicast addresses management |
| iptunnel | ip tunnel | Configure tunnel |
