Linux Networking- Introduction

Linux Networking- Introduction

Introduction

As you may know the the command ifconfig can be used to get the IP address of your interface. I am pasting a sample output of ifconfig command for reference.

^{_{-------------
root@Basil15099/~# ifconfig -a}}

^{_{eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:3B:66:D1}}

^{_{inet addr:83.166.168.139 Bcast:83.166.168.159 Mask:255.255.255.224}}

^{_{inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe3b:66d1/64 Scope:Link}}

^{_{UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1}}

^{_{RX packets:403929286 errors:2261 dropped:5757 overruns:0 frame:0}}

^{_{TX packets:540873029 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0}}

^{_{collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000}}

^{_{RX bytes:3650916530 (3.4 GiB) TX bytes:2670561852 (2.4 GiB)}}

^{_{Interrupt:177 Base address:0x1400}}

^{_{lo Link encap:Local Loopback}}

^{_{inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0}}

^{_{inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host}}

^{_{UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1}}

^{_{RX packets:89800080 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0}}

^{_{TX packets:89800080 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0}}

^{_{collisions:0 txqueuelen:0}}

^{_{RX bytes:3330076384 (3.1 GiB) TX bytes:3330076384 (3.1 GiB)}}

^{_{sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4}}

^{_{NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1}}

^{_{RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0}}

^{_{TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0}}

^{_{collisions:0 txqueuelen:0}}

^{_{RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)}}

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The option -a will show all interfaces associated with your machine (Both active and inactive), where ifconfig will only show the active interfaces.

As you can see this command gives good information on the interrupts, or PCI bus ID, used by each card. You may ignore any further information's in order to avoid confusion. But it matters when it came to troubleshooting which we will discuss at the end of his chapter.