Comments on: 15 Useful “ifconfig” Commands to Configure Network Interface in Linux

By: Ravi Saive

Ravi Saive — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 04:32:28 +0000

In reply to dragonmouth. @Dragonmouth, Fair question - it looks less predictable, but it’s actually more stable. eth0 was assigned based on detection order, change hardware or boot timing, and eth0 could suddenly become eth1. That’s not truly predictable. The newer names are tied to hardware location: en = Ethernet p3s0 = PCI bus 3, slot 0 eno1 = onboard NIC 1 So enp3s0 maps to a specific physical interface and won’t randomly change. It’s less pretty than eth0, sure - but it’s more deterministic, especially on systems with multiple NICs.

By: dragonmouth

dragonmouth — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:12:01 +0000

Modern Linux distributions use predictable network interface names such as ens3, enp3s0, or eno1 instead of the traditional eth0 naming convention. Surely you jest, Ravi! How is “enp3s0” or “ens3” or “eno1” more predictable than “eth0”? What do they even stand for? At least “eth0” clearly reflects the first three letters of “Ethernet”!

By: louis

louis — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 08:15:12 +0000

Like everywhere, the following syntax is not described (even on the man page):

$ ifconfig netmask

Nowhere I saw such a case, address may be multiple addresses …
WHY?

and in man ssh such usage is made !!

By: John Thingstad

John Thingstad — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:15:56 +0000

ifconfig has mostly been succeeded by the ‘IP’ command. Also ‘ss’ replaces ‘netstat’. Perhaps it is time to revisit the old lore and make some updates ;)

By: haha2

haha2 — Sun, 28 Mar 2021 00:09:22 +0000

In reply to haha.

lmao sry for being salty, I found the command.