6 Deprecated Linux Network Commands and Their Modern Replacements

Background

Linux ships with many command‑line utilities, but several older networking tools are now considered obsolete and have been superseded by newer commands from the iproute2 suite or other utilities.

Deprecated Commands and Their Replacements

1. ifconfig

The ifconfig command displays and configures network interfaces. It has been replaced by the ip command. ⚡ ip address or ⚡ ip addr or simply

⚡ ip a

2. netstat

netstat

monitors network connections, routing tables, and listening ports. The modern replacement is ss.

⚡ ss -t

⚡ ss -l

3. scp

scp

(secure copy) has been deprecated in recent Red Hat releases due to security concerns. Recommended alternatives are sftp and rsync.

⚡ sftp [email protected]

⚡ rsync -zvh file.tar.xz /tmp/backups/

4. route

The route command shows and modifies the kernel routing table. Use ip route instead.

⚡ ip route show

5. egrep and fgrep

Both belong to the grep family. egrep is now grep -E and fgrep is grep -F.

egrep: pattern‑search utility that prints lines matching a regular expression.

fgrep: searches for fixed strings in files.

6. arp, iptunnel, nameif

These net‑tools commands are replaced as follows:

arp → ip neighbor (or ip n)

route → ip route (or ip r)

iptunnel → ip tunnel nameif →

ip link

Conclusion

Although the deprecated commands still work, using the newer utilities provides more consistent output and better integration with modern Linux distributions. The choice of tool ultimately depends on user preference and the specific task.