The document provides descriptions of 18 common Linux networking commands, including ARP, CURL, WGET, DIG, HOST, IFCONFIG, IP, IWCONFIG, MTR, NETSTAT, NSLOOKUP, PING, ROUTE, SS, TRACEPATH, TRACEROUTE and FTP. It explains what each command is used for and provides brief details about its functionality, such as ARP being used to find the MAC address associated with an IP address, DIG and HOST performing DNS lookups, and TRACEROUTE tracking the route to a network host.

1. LINUX NETWORKING COMMANDS
(1) ARP :
ARP stands fro “Address Resolution Protocol”. ARP manipulates (or) displays the Kernel’s
Ipv4 network neighbour cache.
Which is used to find the media access control address of a network neighbour for a given
Ipv4 address.
(2) CURL :
Curl is a tool to traansfer data from (or) to a server, using one of the supported protocols
(DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3,
POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET and TFTP). The
command is designed to work without user interaction.
(3) WGET :
GNU wget is a free utility for non- interactive download of files from the web. It supports
HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies.
(4) DIG :
DNS Lookup Utility. Dig (Domain Information Groper) is a flexible tool for interrogating
DNS lookups and displays the answers that are returned from the name servers that were queried.
(5) HOST :
DNS Lookup Utility. Host is a simple utility for performing DNS lookups. It is normally
used to convert names to IP addresses and vice versa.
When no arguments (or) options are given, host prints a short summary of its command line
arguments and options.
(6) HOST NAME :
DNS Lookup Utility.
hostname - show (or) set the system’s hostname.
domain name - show (or) set the system’s NIS/YP domain name.
YP domain name - show (or) set the system’s NIS/YP domain name.
nis domain name - show (or) set the system’s NIS/YP domain name.
dns domain name - show (or) set the system’s DNS domain name.
Hostname is used to display the system’s DNS name, and to display (or) set it’s hostname
(or) NIS domain name.
(7) IFCONFIG :
Ifconfig-configure a network interface. Ifconfig is used to configure the kernel – resident
network interfaces. It is used at boot time to set up interfaces as necessary.
After, that it is usually only needed when debugging (or) when system tuning is needed.
(8) IP :
Show/manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels.

2. (9) IWCONFIG :
Configure a wireless network interface. Iwconfig is similar to ifconfig, but is dedicated to
the wireless interfaces. It is used to set the parameters of the network interface which are specific to
the wireless operation.
Iwconfig may also be used to display those parameters, and the wireless statisticks.
(10) MTR :
A Network Diagnostic Tool. MTR combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping
programs in a single network diagnostic tool.
As MTR starts, it investigates the network connection between the host MTR runs on and
HOSTNAME by sending packets with purposely low TTLS.
(11) NETSTAT :
Print network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, and
multicast memberships.
Netstat prints information about the Linux networking sub system. The type of information
printed is controlled by the first argument, as follows :
(none)
By default, netstat displays a list of open sockets. If you don’t specify any address families,
then the active sockets of all configured address families will be printed.
(12) NSLOOKUP :
NSLOOKUP is a program to query internet domain name servers. Nslookup has two
modes : interactive and non-interactive.
Interactive mode allows the user to query name servers for information about various hosts
and domains (or) to print a list of hosts in a domain.
Non-interactive mode is used to print just the name and requested information for a host (or)
domain.
(13) PING :
Ping, Ping6 - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts. Ping uses the ICMP
protocol’s mandatory ECHO_REQUEST datagram to elict an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE from a
host (or) gateway.
ECHO_REQUEST datagrams have an IP and ICMP header, followed by a struct timeval and
then an arbitary number of “Pad” bytes used to fill out the packet. The Ping command appeared in
4.3BSD.
(14) ROUTE :
Show/manipulate the IP routing table. Route manipulates the kernel’s IP routing tables. Its
primary use is to set up static routes to spcific hosts (or) networks via an interface after it has been
configured with the ifconfig program.
When the add (or) del options are used, route modifies the routing tables. Without these
options, route displays the current contents of the routing tables.
(15) SS :
SS – another utility to investigate sockets. SS is used to dump socket statistics. It allows
showing information similar to netstat. It can display more TCP and state informations than other
tools.

3. (16) TRACEPATH :
Tracepath, Tracepath 6 - traces path to a network host discovering MTU along this path. It
traces path to destination discovering MTU along this path.
It uses UDP port (or) some random port. It is similar to traceroute, only doesn’t require
superuser privileges and has no fancy options.
Tracepath 6 is good replacement for traceroute 6 and classic example of application of Linux
error queues.
(17) TRACEROUTE :
Print the route packets trace to network host. Traceroute tracks the route packets taken from
an IP network on their way to a given host.
It utilizes the IP protocol’s “Time To Live (TTL)” field and attempts to elicit an ICMP
TIME_EXCEEDED response from each gateway along the path to the host.
(18) FTP :
FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. Internet file transfer program. FTP is the user
interface to the Internet standard File transfer protocol.
The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a remote network site. The FTP
command appeared in 4.2BSD.