What is the difference between `/sbin/ip route` and `/sbin/route`?

networking ip route iproute

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Solution 1

route is the old traditional tool and available on numerous Unix systems. ip belongs to the iproute2 suite which is a Linux only tool and uses the Netlink API, which is a socket like interface for accessing kernel information about interfaces, address assignments and routes. It replaces most of the functionality of ifconfig, route, netstat and a few others.

I assume you're on Linux, then you should use ip since route and ifconfig are deprecated, although still widely used.

Solution 2

Different commands, different syntax.

route stems from very very long ago and still exists mostly because it has always existed and some stuff still expects it to be there.

ip belongs to the iproute2 package and can do everything route and ifconfig can and much, much, MUCH more.

Full documentation on the ip command can be found here among other places.

TL;DR: Always use ip.

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Author by

Brandon Condrey

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Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Brandon Condrey over 1 year
Linux comes with two utilities
- /sbin/route
- /sbin/ip route
What is the difference between the two and what is the rule of thumb to use when you decide which one of the two you should use? I know they're both documented in two separate locations,
- man 8 route
- man 8 ip-route
Jpark822 almost 11 years

+1 for mentioning it is Linux only. On a site named Unix & Linux that is worth mentioning.
Alicia almost 11 years

I always wondered why stick only to the non-portable Linux utilities, specially when they require you to be much more verbose. I find more comfortable to write ifconfig eth0 up 192.168.0.1/24 than ip link set dev eth0 up && ip addr change dev eth0 192.168.0.1/24.
Marco almost 11 years

@ntrrgc You can shorten this to ip l s eth0 up && ip a c dev eth0 192.168.0.1/24. Furthermore the /24 syntax is not implemented in all ifconfig versions, on some systems you have to write netmask 255.255.255.0 which makes it rather verbose. But I agree ifconfig is often shorter.