There's real reasons for Linux to replace ifconfig, netstat, et al

[branfont]

One of the ongoing system administration controversies in Linux is that there is an ongoing effort to obsolete the old, cross-Unix standard network administration and diagnosis commands of ifconfig, netstat and the like and replace them with fresh new Linux specific things like ss and the ip suite. Old sysadmins are generally grumpy about this; they consider it yet another sign of Linux's 'not invented here' attitude that sees Linux breaking from well-established Unix norms to go its own way. Although I'm an old sysadmin myself, I don't have this reaction. Instead, I think that it might be both sensible and honest for Linux to go off in this direction. There are two reasons for this, one ostensible and one subtle.

 

The ostensible surface issue is that the current code for netstat, ifconfig, and so on operates in an inefficient way. Per various people, netstat et al operate by reading various files in /proc, and doing this is not the most efficient thing in the world (either on the kernel side or on netstat's side). You won't notice this on a small system, but apparently there are real impacts on large ones. Modern commands like ss and ip use Linux's netlink sockets, which are much more efficient. In theory netstat, ifconfig, and company could be rewritten to use netlink too; in practice this doesn't seem to have happened and there may be political issues involving different groups of developers with different opinions on which way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full article @ Chris's Wiki

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Just ignore the other admins who know NOTHING about Linux and its inner workings.

[adrynalyne]

  On 27/05/2018 at 17:14, Mindovermaster said:

Just ignore the other admins who know NOTHING about Linux and its inner workings.

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I’m having a hard time relating your reply to the content of this post. 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

  On 27/05/2018 at 17:31, adrynalyne said:

I’m having a hard time relating your reply to the content of this post. 

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I am having a hard time realizing what your problem is with my complaint.

[adrynalyne]

  On 27/05/2018 at 19:42, Mindovermaster said:

I am having a hard time realizing what your problem is with my complaint.

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Ok, let me spell it out for you then. This article is about people not wanting to change. It has f all to do with people knowing Linux or how it works. 

[tiagosilva29]

Sometimes you have to distance yourself from "norms" and "conformity" in order to progress. If a tool is obsolete or simply does not make sense anymore, why keep using it?

I like the old UNIX simplicity, when hardware and networking were laconic, but in these modern times… some things are just too complex to get right by using old tools.