It also shows the mac address of the device (HWaddr) and some statistics about the traffic. These correspond to a wired Ethernet device (assigned address 192.168.1.2), the lo or loopback connection, and a wireless Ethernet device (address 192.168.1.102). In the example below you can see eth0, lo and wlan0.

Typing this at a command prompt will display information about all known network devices.

Some will require root permissions or at least the ability to issue the sudo command.įirst and foremost is the ifconfig command. Most commands simply display information that can help you determine what’s happening. In reality, there’s nothing to be afraid of when it comes to the Linux command line, especially when it comes to diagnosing a network problem. If you’re uncomfortable using the Linux command line from a terminal, you might as well stop reading at this point or at least skip to the other applications. We’ll use Ubuntu 10.04 desktop as our test platform, although all of these work in other distros as well. Knowing a few simple commands and when to use them will help you get started as a network diagnostic technician. In addition, there are any number of open source tools available to help you track down pesky network issues. Every Linux operating system comes with a number of command line tools to help you diagnose a network problem. Understanding how to do basic network troubleshooting will save you both in wasted time and money. Monitoring traffic on your network is only as important as the data and computers you want to protect. Linux networking monitoring tools work on all networks– Linux, BSD, Mac, Unix, and Windows.

Linux wireshark command line how to