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Hey everyone, wasn't sure where to post this, but if it's in the wrong section, feel free to move it about. So I've been reading some background on the networking of debian and between, NetworkManager and it's own suite of commands, iproute2 and it's suite, systemd-networkd, wpa_suppliment, net-tools and it's suite, iw... etc. I'm sure I'm even missing some. My main question is in regards to net-tools specifically. Since being pretty much replaced with iproute2, is there still a need/place for net-tools? What's the point of distributions keeping it around for this long. iproute2 has been years out of the gate. I definitely get that in stable, and debian's philosophy in general is slow and steady, but does net-tools even provide anything useful that isn't duplicated in one of the many networking packages I listed?
My sub question is that are all of the packages really needed to get a working setup installed? I'm still not familiar 100% with all of the uses, so I may be missing the fact that they all literally do different things.
"I have not failed, I have found 10,000 ways that will not work" -Edison
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net-tools can't access some of the technologies that have been implemented in the kernel's network stack over time: it lacks some functionality,e.g. AFAIK you can't create vxlans. For some purposes, like configuring IP address, netmask, and broadcast address for an interface, it's still useful. Some people say its syntax is not as braindead as the ip command's (which is mildly more annoying in some cases, but also nicer in some other cases, like 'ip route').
Use whatever you want. If it works, it doesn't matter. Just check that no script needs net-tools
Edit: Found http://inai.de/2008/02/19.
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Hmm Well I suppose my point was more to ask, will B.L/Debian ever phase out having net-tools or any legacy redundent networking tool from their release builds? Not that I have any animosity against the net-tools suite, but it's just the most obvious. From what I can tell, the iproute2 suite does everything the net-tool suite has.
"I have not failed, I have found 10,000 ways that will not work" -Edison
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The installed size of the net-tools package is a mahosive 784KiB (amd64 systems), I think we'll keep it around for those who prefer the syntax and have no need for the extra features offered by newer commands
are all of the packages really needed to get a working setup installed?
No, not really.
I just use wpasupplicant for wireless association and ip(8) (from the iproute2 package) to assign IP addresses.
iw is also needed for wireless configuration.
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Personally, net-tools is a legacy interface.
Doing sysadmin stuff all day, the output of `ip address` or `ip link` or even `ip route` is much more understandable and on-point. For example, you can copy-paste the output of `ip route` directly into an `ip route add` command if you want to (in fact, on RHEL, this is an actual way to configure interfaces – putting what you would like `ip route` to say in a config file, which is then directly passed to the command. While RHEL system management is garbage, I find that particular point nice.
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The installed size of the net-tools package is a mahosive 784KiB (amd64 systems), I think we'll keep it around for those who prefer the syntax and have no need for the extra features offered by newer commands
You and your attention to details! But yea point taken. It's just hard to keep track of so many network configuration tools. Wired and Wireless each have their own sets of like 5 packages each. Each package providing it's own suite of tools..
"I have not failed, I have found 10,000 ways that will not work" -Edison
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LOL. Welcome to Linux where every subsystem has 3 or 4 different layers of abstraction. Like everything else, I suppose there is canonical ways to do stuff then there is ways to just get it done. However, when it comes to scripting, output really does matter to me, if for no reason than I am not half the wizard with awk that some of these guys are. For the most part though, I tend to stick with what is already there. No sense creating dependencies when they are not needed. Other times, I just have to go with what works.
The one that really gets me, though, is why the simplest device in the computer require not one but three layers of abstraction. I am not a fan of figuring out keyboard issues for sure.
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