.
Note
On modern Linux systems, the
ip command has replaced
ifconfig.
Description
ifconfig stands for "interface configuration." It is used to view and change the configuration of the network interfaces on your system.
Running the ifconfig command with no arguments, like this:
ifconfig
...displays information about all network interfaces currently in operation. The output will resemble the following:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 09:00:12:90:e3:e5
inet addr:192.168.1.29 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe70:e3f5/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:54071 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:48515 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:22009423 (20.9 MiB) TX bytes:25690847 (24.5 MiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xd020
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:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7766 (7.5 KiB) TX bytes:7766 (7.5 KiB)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 58:a2:c2:93:27:36
inet addr:192.168.1.64 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::6aa3:c4ff:fe93:4746/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:436968 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:364103 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:115886055 (110.5 MiB) TX bytes:83286188 (79.4 MiB)
Here, eth0, lo and wlan0 are the names of the active network interfaces on the system.
- eth0 is the first Ethernet interface. (Additional Ethernet interfaces would be named eth1, eth2, etc.) This type of interface is usually a NIC connected to the network by a category 5 cable.
- lo is the loopback interface. This is a special network interface that the system uses to communicate with itself.
- wlan0 is the name of the first wireless network interface on the system. Additional wireless interfaces would be named wlan1, wlan2, etc.
These are the traditional naming conventions for network
interfaces under Linux; other operating systems may have different
names. For instance, under many
BSD operating systems, Ethernet interfaces are named
em0,
em1, etc. Check your configuration, or consult your documentation, to determine the exact names of your interfaces.