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There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

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Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#201

Post by jrnichols »

VLM wrote: post #111
wruza wrote: post #49

While unrelated to subj or that new systemd wave, I want to state that almost all my sysadm skills are lost. Idk who is responsible for this and if they exists, or is it just time going, but I’m not a power user anymore. Long-term skill investments without a profession are so meaningless – ten years and you stare at the screen with no idea what to do. That was hard time and now it is all for nothing.

If you were a productive unix sysadmin in 2008 you are a productive unix sysadmin in 2018. Its just that Linux is no longer unix-like and you've switched from using, perhaps, Debian install media in '08 to FreeBSD install media in '18. Its not really that big of a problem. Its much easier and more productive to switch to FreeBSD than to switch to ... whatever it is Linux is becoming.

> If you were a productive unix sysadmin in 2008 you are a productive unix sysadmin in 2018.

Unless you mention Perl to someone now, and that someone might be 10 years younger but still your manager, and they look at you like you just spoke greek.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#202

Post by rosser »

jcastro wrote: post #119
blackhaz wrote: post #44

When I started learning Linux when it was, I think, 0.99, I appreciated that so many commands where cross-Unix. It was a Unix lookalike. I could watch how something is done on one Unix, type this stuff into my Linux terminal, and get an equivalent result in Linux, and this helped a lot and created a sense of community. Now I see that Linux tears the standards apart, there are more and more obstacles with porting comp…

I think you're over-romantascizing the past here. Linux dropped the cost of using UNIX down to zero. And it's not like everything was this cross-UNIX Utopia where things worked from system to system consistently and reliably. We went from a set of highly proprietary and expensive OSes that ran on hardware that a common person had no access to to something that nearly anyone can use. That's way more important than hav…

> Linux dropped the cost of using UNIX down to zero.

"Linux is only free if your time has no value."

I've been using it personally and professionally for over 20 years now. Unless you're specifically using the term "cost" to mean solely money, it is in no conceivable way without cost. There is, for example, a significant cognitive burden involved in keeping up with the ceaseless parade of travesties committed by people trying to "make things better" in Linux, who instead just compromise the system for those of us who disagree with their notions of betterness.

I'm reminded entirely too much by some corners of the Linux community of Apple's "We know what users want, and give it to them good and hard" attitude.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#203

Post by russh »

SEJeff wrote: post #176
ahartmetz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, does "ip" also support "tc" (traffic control) commands - qdisc is a queueing discipline... tc seems to be the an earlier thing from the people who brought us ip. tc must have the worst command line interface and documentation ever - it is very hard and very frustrating to use, like no other command line interface I've ever seen. I once tried to use tc and gave up after more than a day of trying, that is how bad…

MegaCLI (lsi hw raid control) sees your tc and raised you a few million awful flags.

I'm pretty sure MegaCLI was written by someone who used to write software for digital phone switches.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#204

Post by rsync »

dijit wrote: post #185
rkeene2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize Solaris implemented a service management system (which is also superior to systemd; and was also created prior to systemd's conception), right ? They switched away from legacy SysV init scripts BEFORE systemd existed.

SMF was quite nice. Solaris was incredible in a lot of ways. I always wonder why it never took off.

"I always wonder why it never took off."

It did take off and had a long and productive life.

Many, many of the early ISPs and webhosting providers were built on Solaris 2.6 and "7". In the late nineties it was very common to go into a datacenter and see racks full of ultra 2 boxes stacked on one another ...

If you went to college between 1992 and 1999 you were almost assured to log into a SunOS or Solaris system to read your email or ftp or whatever.

It was only when the dot-com money dried up that people (including myself) made the switch to PC based servers in an effort to save money.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#205

Post by sanjayjc »

OnMyPhone wrote: post #118
ahartmetz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, does "ip" also support "tc" (traffic control) commands - qdisc is a queueing discipline... tc seems to be the an earlier thing from the people who brought us ip. tc must have the worst command line interface and documentation ever - it is very hard and very frustrating to use, like no other command line interface I've ever seen. I once tried to use tc and gave up after more than a day of trying, that is how bad…

I spent a bit too long on playing with tc a while ago. The best I could get it was to limit each person's download speeds from the one internet connection we had. I'm with you on tc having the worst interface and documentation that I have seen from a command before. I spent maybe a few days total on it then gave up because I figured if there isn't much documentation on it, it isn't worth figuring out.

I used tc for something interesting once: I setup Cassandra nodes in distinct docker containers running on a single laptop. I installed tc in each container to throttle packets flowing between containers and in so doing, simulated a lossy, high latency WAN network. The goal was to evaluate how Cassandra fared as network latencies increased.

tc fit the bill nicely.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#206

Post by apple4ever »

iod wrote: post #58

TIL: iproute2 has a color, a brief/human mode, and a one-line mode. I think I am going to be aliasing ip -color to ip from now on. $ ip -br -c a # ip -brief -color address lo UNKNOWN 127.0.0.1/8 ::1/128 eth0 DOWN wlan0 UP 192.0.2.1/24 2001:db8::1/64 fe80::1/64 $ ip -br -c l # ip -brief -color link lo UNKNOWN 00:00:00:00:00:00 eth0 DOWN 00:12:34:56:78:9a wlan0 UP 12:34:56:78:9a:bc

WHOA

That's crazy helpful. I'm aliasing it as well.

(FYI --color works too)

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#207

Post by econochoice »

erikb wrote: post #66
blackhaz wrote: post #44

When I started learning Linux when it was, I think, 0.99, I appreciated that so many commands where cross-Unix. It was a Unix lookalike. I could watch how something is done on one Unix, type this stuff into my Linux terminal, and get an equivalent result in Linux, and this helped a lot and created a sense of community. Now I see that Linux tears the standards apart, there are more and more obstacles with porting comp…

Not to say I would be a great fan of Linux, but I think at this point it's quite clear it's the huge winner of OSes. Nearly all servers run on it nowadays, I think all relevant smartphones (not sure though, correct me if that's wrong), many desktop/laptop computers and even Windows is integrating more and more with Linux. With such a dominance there is not much point in syncing changes of the standard with other OSes…

Kernel won, userland didn't.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#208

Post by kchr »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #191
digi_owl wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply detect when piped and leave the color out, as just about every sane cli tool does it.

Spot on. A good pattern is to autodetect what to do by default and yet allow forcing on/off (e.g. --color and --no-color)

Agreed. It could be as simple as checking if there is a tty and whether or not we're inside a pipe.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#209

Post by sverige »

jrnichols wrote: post #201
VLM wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a productive unix sysadmin in 2008 you are a productive unix sysadmin in 2018. Its just that Linux is no longer unix-like and you've switched from using, perhaps, Debian install media in '08 to FreeBSD install media in '18. Its not really that big of a problem. Its much easier and more productive to switch to FreeBSD than to switch to ... whatever it is Linux is becoming.

> If you were a productive unix sysadmin in 2008 you are a productive unix sysadmin in 2018. Unless you mention Perl to someone now, and that someone might be 10 years younger but still your manager, and they look at you like you just spoke greek.

Ha ha! Perl has become the shit test for whether I feel like dealing with certain people. "Oh, you don't use Perl?...." Not everyone, just certain ones.

Re: There are real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, etc

#210

Post by sverige »

fb03 wrote: post #54

It's pretty clear that ip is the superior and more modern tool, i believe they could work on the presentation layer of the software tho... its output pales compared to ifconfig, as other peers have stated. that's what really gives us grumpy old sysadmins the kneejerk reactions. every time i log into a system and i have to tipo "ip a" i need to stop and try to slowly decode the unformatted soup letter that is presente…

I hear this argument a lot: this or that is the "more modern tool." The problem is I almost never see the benefits in the same way I can tell how, say, a battery-powered nail gun is superior to hammering hand-held nails. Usually it's just a hammer with a cross peen instead of a claw, painted a different color.
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