Most useful Linux networking Commands and Tools with their explanation

Most useful Linux networking Commands and Tools with their explanation

arp

• see your arp table.

  moalaa@NetDevOps:~$ arp -na
  ? (172.18.0.2) at 02:42:ac:12:00:02 [ether] on docker0
  ? (172.17.192.1) at 00:15:5d:b9:4a:01 [ether] on eth0
  ? (172.18.0.4) at 02:42:ac:12:00:04 [ether] on docker0
  ? (172.19.0.2) at 02:42:ac:13:00:02 [ether] on br-be93ea389d8e
  moalaa@NetDevOps:~$ 
  

aria2

• downloading just about everything. Torrents included.

arpwatch

• Ethernet Activity Monitor.

bmon

• bandwidth monitor and rate estimator.

bwm-ng

• live network bandwidth monitor.

curl

• transferring data with URLs.(or try httpie)

darkstat

• captures network traffic, usage statistics.

dhclient

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Client

dig

• query DNS servers for information.

dstat

• replacement for vmstat, iostat, mpstat, netstat and ifstat.

ethtool

• utility for controlling network drivers and hardware.

gated

• gateway routing daemon.

host

• DNS lookup utility.

hping

• TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer.

ibmonitor

• shows bandwidth and total data transferred.

ifstat

• report network interfaces bandwidth.

iftop

• display bandwidth usage.

ip

• a command with more features than ifconfig.

iperf3

• network bandwidth measurement tool.

iproute2

• collection of utilities for controlling TCP/IP.

iptables

• take control of network traffic.

IPTraf

• An IP Network Monitor.

iputils

• set of small useful utilities for Linux networking.

iw

• a new nl80211 based CLI configuration utility → for wireless devices.

jwhois (whois)

• client for the whois service.

lsof -i

• reveal information about your network sockets.

mtr

• network diagnostic tool.

net-tools

• utilities include: arp, hostname, ifconfig, netstat, rarp, route, plipconfig, slattach, mii-tool, iptunnel and ipmaddr.

ncat

• improved re-implementation of the venerable netcat.

netcat

• networking utility for reading/writing network connections.

nethogs

• a small ‘net top’ tool.

Netperf

• Network bandwidth Testing.

netplan

• Netplan is a utility for easily configuring networking on a linux system.

netsniff-ng

• Swiss army knife for daily Linux network plumbing.

netwatch

• monitoring Network Connections.

ngrep

• grep applied to the network layer.

nload

• display network usage.

nmap

• network discovery and security auditing.

nmcli

• a command-line tool for controlling NetworkManager and reporting network status.

nmtui

• provides a text interface to configure networking by controlling NetworkManager.

nslookup

• query Internet name servers interactively.

ping

• send icmp echo_request to network hosts to test connectivity.

route

• show / manipulate the IP routing table.

slurm

• network load monitor.

snort

• Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System.

smokeping

• keeps track of your network latency.

socat

• establishes two bidirectional byte streams and transfers data between them.

speedometer

• Measure and display the rate of data across a network.

speedtest-cli

• test internet bandwidth using speedtest.net

ss

• utility to investigate sockets.

ssh

• secure system administration and file transfers over insecure networks.

tcpdump

• command-line packet analyzer.

tcptrack

• Displays information about tcp connections on a network interface.

telnet

• user interface to the TELNET protocol.

tracepath

• very similar function to traceroute.

traceroute

• print the route packets trace to network host.

vnStat

• network traffic monitor.

websocat

• Connection forwarder from/to web sockets to/from usual sockets, in style of socat.

wget

• retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS.

iwconfig, iwlist, iwspy, iwpriv and ifrename.

• Wireless Tools for Linux

Wireshark

• network protocol analyzer.

That’s it!

Hopefully you will find this post useful.