Debian Bookworm (Standard Install) Ifconfig Problem

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 12:41

I've have to admit I have never just picked up a copy of Debian from their site before. Other flavours yes. On install of new Flavours @ the cli I have a set of stuff IE essentials I like to install. Like: dnstop,iftop,iperf3,mtr etc.. you get idea but! ifconfig which I would get from net-tools doesn't want to work this time. I know I could do ip a, but I like what I like. Anyway all I seem to get from it now is -bash: ifconfig: command not found. I used sudo apt install by the way. Any thoughts welcome.

Sinbad2000 · 14 Feb 2024 at 12:57

Check whether ifconfig actually exists on your filesystem - look in /usr/bin/, /bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin

If it's there, check the location is in your path?

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 13:06

It's in sbin path gives...
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
I think?

Sinbad2000 · 14 Feb 2024 at 13:07

Ad_Augendae said:
It's in sbin path gives...
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
I think?

You need to add the path containing the binary to your path (possibly in your .profile or .bashrc file, or the systemwide equivalents)

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 13:10

I'll take a look thanks.

Craig321 · 14 Feb 2024 at 13:59

Ad_Augendae said:
I've have to admit I have never just picked up a copy of Debian from their site before. Other flavours yes. On install of new Flavours @ the cli I have a set of stuff IE essentials I like to install. Like: dnstop,iftop,iperf3,mtr etc.. you get idea but! ifconfig which I would get from net-tools doesn't want to work this time. I know I could do ip a, but I like what I like. Anyway all I seem to get from it now is -bash: ifconfig: command not found. I used sudo apt install by the way. Any thoughts welcome.

When you say net-tools doesn't want to work, what do you mean? I am running Bookworm and just tried it - sudo apt install net-tools - I could then run ifconfig without a problem. Did you try run sudo apt update?

ifconfig is actually deprecated now, so you really should move over to ip!

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 14:03

It works using sudo ifconfig. if I use pi's or ubuntu I would just need to use ifconfig.

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 14:04

~~and yes you was correct I just needed to run sudo apt update lol~~
Strike that I was at a pi console, so I would need to add paths or just use sudo is the best answer

Craig321 · 14 Feb 2024 at 14:08

Ah - nice easy fix!

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 14:15

Well Debian asks you to setup a Administrator account then a user account so I guess it's a little way different to the normal flavours.

Sinbad2000 · 14 Feb 2024 at 14:48

Ad_Augendae said:
It works using sudo ifconfig. if I use pi's or ubuntu I would just need to use ifconfig.

Yeah makes no sense that you need elevated privileges to see a host's IP address.

Root issue is your path should have sbin in it anyway as far as I'm concerned.

Alternatively you could just run /sbin/ifconfig from the standard user prompt (or /usr/sbin/ifconfig if that's where it is)

opethdisciple · 14 Feb 2024 at 19:04

which ifconfig

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 19:39

opethdisciple said:
which ifconfig

/sbin/ifconfig -version
net-tools 2.10
which ifconfig
/usr/sbin/ifconfig

Edit: Which isn't part of the debian package so it just returned nothing.
On installing which I get this output...
which: no ifconfig in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games)

Throrik · 14 Feb 2024 at 20:40

This has been expected behaviour in Debian for a long time now, as it's deprecated. You can either specify full path, or alias ifconfig to resolve the full path for you.

Ad_Augendae · 14 Feb 2024 at 20:42

Throrik said:
This has been expected behaviour in Debian for a long time now, as it's deprecated. You can either specify full path, or alias ifconfig to resolve the full path for you.

Yeah I can't stand the way ip adress looks, half arsed etc.
So I've just chucked export PATH="/usr/sbin:$PATH" in my profile for now!