Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 784314
ifconfig output format changed
Last modified: 2013-08-22 04:48:52 EDT
Description of problem: ifconfig output format changed in F17. Is this changes made intentionally or this is a bug? Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): net-tools-1.60-133.20120119git.fc17.x86_64 Actual results (F17): eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 metric 1 inet 172.17.17.17 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.17.17.255 inet6 fe80::5054:ff:fe3f:c083 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link> ether 52:54:00:3f:c0:83 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet) RX packets 339806 bytes 317184647 (302.4 MiB) RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0 TX packets 158189 bytes 14694182 (14.0 MiB) TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 Expected results (as in F16): eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 52:54:00:A3:98:1B inet addr:172.17.17.15 Bcast:172.17.17.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::5054:ff:fea3:981b/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:678733 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:176576 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:362735982 (345.9 MiB) TX bytes:15404448 (14.6 MiB)
I updated net-tools in rawhide to upstream git snapshot. The reason was to finally sync after 10 years of diversion from upstream. This step allowed me to remove almost all of 100 net-tools' patches we had had in our versioning system. I'm cooperating with upstream on merging the rest of the Fedora patches. So yes, this change has been intentional. I know the ifconfig output is quite different but it's more like 'ip addr' output now. I'll leave this bug open because you're most likely not the only one wondering.
Is there any risk to broke old software that uses old ifconfig output format?
Sure there is. But net-tools has been deprecated for a long time and important components should be already ported to iproute2. Namely initscripts should be ifconfig-free since the following commits: http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=initscripts.git;a=commitdiff;h=6f6830b700f33172e33db32f12e9bfef3a7f7989 http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=initscripts.git;a=commitdiff;h=b5a510d2558d333624dac456790d667e3e7f0570
I've just noted that the new output is similar to the ifconfig output on Solaris and *BSD, so that was probably the main reason for the change (which is BTW over 8 years old [1]). [1] http://net-tools.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=net-tools/net-tools;a=commitdiff;h=eb04ef31571f6c707eacaba6846feeebfab518e6
ifconfig outpiut in F17: eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 metric 1 inet 172.17.17.17 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.17.17.255 inet6 fe80::5054:ff:fe3f:c083 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link> ether 52:54:00:3f:c0:83 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet) RX packets 696290 bytes 662497816 (631.8 MiB) RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0 TX packets 291773 bytes 25441430 (24.2 MiB) TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 ifconfig outpiut in FreeBSD 9: em0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500 options=9b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM> ether 00:0c:29:3c:a8:aa inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255 inet6 fe80::20c:29ff:fe3c:a8aa%em0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL> media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>) status: active
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 19 development cycle. Changing version to '19'. (As we did not run this process for some time, it could affect also pre-Fedora 19 development cycle bugs. We are very sorry. It will help us with cleanup during Fedora 19 End Of Life. Thank you.) More information and reason for this action is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping/Fedora19
This has been in place for couple of releases so closing.