Linux ip route command reference

by example
All the commands below take effect immediately after you hit Enter, and do NOT
survive reboot. You may shorten the commands to the shortest but unique, e.g. sh
NOTE
ip ad instead of show ip address. All the commands come as part of the pre-installed
package iproute2.

Yuri Slobodyanyuk, https://www.linkedin.com/in/yurislobodyanyuk/

ip address - Manage IP address(es) on interfaces

ip route - Manage routing table
ip link - Link Management
ip neighbor - Manage ARP and neighbors table
Reference

ip address - Manage IP address(es) on

interfaces
Command Description

ip address show / ip ad sh Show all IP addresses of all interfaces, also their

MTU, MAC addresses.

ip address show ens36 Show IPs of a given interface (ens36).

ip address show up Only show IPs of the interfaces that are

configured as UP.

ip address show dynamic/permanent Show only dynamic (DHCP) or static IPv4/IPv6

addresses.

ip address add 192.0.2.1/27 dev ens36 Add a new IP address (192.0.2.1) to the named
(ens36) interface.

ip address add 192.0.2.1/27 dev ens36 label Add IP address to the interface, AND label it
ens36:external (external). The label is any string. The label will
show in show ip address as: inet 192.0.2.1/27
scope global ens33:external

ip address delete 192.0.2.1/27 dev ens36 Delete the specified IP address from the
interface

ip address flush dev ens36 Delete ALL IP addresses from the given
interface.

1
ip route - Manage routing table
Command Description

ip route [show] / ip ro Show the routing table for both – IPv4 and IPv6.
ip -6 route Show the routing table for IPv6 only.
ip -4 route Show the routing table for IPv4 only.

ip route add default via 10.10.10.1 Add default route/default gateway via next hop
ip route add default dev ens36 … via outgoing interface (ens36)
ip route add 0.0.0.0/0 dev ens36 … via outgoing interface using 0.0.0.0/0 notation
ip -6 route add default dev ens36 Add default IPv6 route.

ip route delete default dev ens36 Delete default route via given interface

ip route show root 192.0.2.0/24 Show routes not shorter than the given. Here,
192.0.2.0/29 will match, but 192.0.2.0/23 will not.

ip route show match 192.0.2.0/29 Show routes not longer than the given
network/mask. Here, 192.0.2.0/30 will match, but
192.0.2.0/27 will not.

ip route show exact 192.0.2.0/29 Show route(s) matching EXACTLY inside the
network and its given mask. Here, 192.0.2.7 will
match, but 192.0.2.8 will not.

ip route get 192.123.123.1/24 Simulate resolving of a route in real time by

kernel.

ip route add 192.192.13.0/24 via 10.13.77.1 Add new route to 192.192.13.1/24 via nexthop.
ip route add 192.192.13.0/24 dev ens36 Add new route to 192.192.13.1/24 via interface.

ip route delete 192.192.13.0/24 via 10.13.77.1 Delete specific route

ip route delete 192.192.13.0/24

ip route change 192.192.13.0/24 dev ens32 Change some parameter of the existing route.

ip route replace 192.192.13.0/24 dev ens36 Replace a route if exists add if not.

ip route add blackhole 192.1.1.0/24 Black hole some route. The traffic sent to this
route will be dropped without any feedback.

ip route add unreachable 192.1.1.0/24 Block destination route, replies to sender “Host
unreachable”.

ip route add prohibit 192.1.1.0/24 Block destination route, replies to sender with
ICMP “Administratively prohibited”.

ip route add throw 192.1.1.0/24 Block destination route, sends in reply ICMP “net
unreachable”.

ip route add 10.10.10.0/24 via 10.1.1.1 metric 5 Add a route with a custom metric.

ip route add default nexthop via 10.10.10.1 Add 2 (default) routes with different weights
weight 1 nexthop dev ens33 weight 10 (higher weight is preferred) – first with the
weight of 1, second with the weight of 10.

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ip link - Link Management
Command Description

ip link show / ip link / ip link list Show info on all available interfaces.
ip link show ens36 Show info on a specific interface.

ip link set dev eth36 down Set interface state to down.

ip link set dev ens36 up Set interface state to up.

ip link set ens33 name eth33 Rename interface, here from ens33 to eth33.
First, you have to set interface to down state.
This adds this name as an alternative name,
keeping the old name as well. Use with care –
some distributions (RHEL/CentOS) expect certain
names for each interface type.

ip link set dev eth0 address 02:42:c2:7c:39:b3 Change MAC address of the interface.

ip link set dev tun0 mtu 1480 Set MTU size for the interface.

ip link delete <dev> Delete interface, relevant for virtual interfaces

only (VLAN, bridge, VXLAN, etc.).

ip link set dev ens36 arp off/on Turn ARP resolution protocol on the interface
ens36 on/off. NOTE: disabling ARP will clear the
current ARP table and will prevent this interface
from learning MAC addresses, and so will
disconnect any remote sessions to the host.

ip link set dev ens36 multicast off/on Turn multicast on the interface ens36 on or off.

ip link add name eth0.110 link eth0 type vlan Add VLAN 110 on the fly to the interface eth0,
id 110 naming it eth1.110.

ip link add name eth0.120 link eth0 type vlan QinQ (kernel >= 3.10). Add VLAN 120 as
proto 802.1ad id 120 external VLAN on interface eth0 naming it
ip link add name eth0.120.200 link eth0.120 eth0.120, setting protocol to 802.1ad. Add
type vlan proto 802.1q id 200 internal VLAN 200 to the eth0.120, naming it
eth0.120.200 and setting protocol to the 802.1Q.

ip link add dummy0 type dummy Create virtual software interface of type dummy,
ip addr add 172.17.1.1/24 dev dummy0 assign it IP address, and bring it up. Useful for
ip link set dummy0 up testing.

ip link add vx0 type vxlan id 100 local Create VXLAN tunnel with id of 100 and local
172.16.13.1 remote 192.168.12.12 dev eth0 and remote addresses of
dstport 4789 172.16.13.1/192.168.12.12 using destination port
of 4789 UDP.

3
Command Description

ip link add bond13-14 type bond mode active- Create logical interface bond13-14 of type bond
backup in active-backup mode for failover (only 1
ip link set eth13 master bond13-14 physical interface is active at any time). Add 2
ip link set eth14 master bond13-14 physical interfaces to this bond (eth13 & eth14).
All further configurations are to be done on the
bond13-14 interface.

ip neighbor - Manage ARP and neighbors

table
Command Description

ip neighbor show Show all MAC addresses of the IPv4 neighbors.

ip neighbor show dev eth0 Show MAC addresses of the neighbors on ens36
interface only.
ip -6 neighbor show Show IPv6 neighbors.

ip neighbor flush dev eth0 Delete all cached dynamically learned MAC
addresses on the interface eth0.

ip neighbor add 192.1.1.1 lladdr Add static IP address to MAC address mapping
01:22:33:44:55:f1 dev eth0 for a neighbor on the interface eth0.

ip neighbor delete 192.1.1.1 lladdr Delete a static mapping of IP address to the MAC
01:33:44:55:ff:11 dev eth0 address on the interface.

Reference
• https://manpages.debian.org/jessie/iproute2/ip-route.8.en.html