Most useful Linux networking commands and their explanation

→ arp – see your arp table.
→ aria2 – downloading just about everything. Torrents included.
→ arpwatch – Ethernet Activity Monitor.
→ bmon – bandwidth monitor and rate estimator.
→ bwm-ng – live network bandwidth monitor.
→ curl – transferring data with URLs.(or try httpie)
→ darkstat – captures network traffic, usage statistics.
→ dhclient – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Client
→ dig – query DNS servers for information.
→ dstat – replacement for vmstat, iostat, mpstat, netstat and ifstat.
→ ethtool – utility for controlling network drivers and hardware.
→ gated – gateway routing daemon.
→ host – DNS lookup utility.
→ hping – TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer.
→ ibmonitor – shows bandwidth and total data transferred.
→ ifstat –  report network interfaces bandwidth.
→ iftop – display bandwidth usage.
→ ip  – a command with more features than ifconfig.
→ iperf3 – network bandwidth measurement tool.
→ iproute2 – collection of utilities for controlling TCP/IP.
→ iptables – take control of network traffic.
→ IPTraf – An IP Network Monitor.
→ iputils – set of small useful utilities for Linux networking.
→ iw – a new nl80211 based CLI configuration utility → for wireless devices.
→ jwhois (whois) – client for the whois service.
→ lsof -i – reveal information about your network sockets.
→ mtr – network diagnostic tool.
→ net-tools – utilities include: arp, hostname, ifconfig, netstat, rarp, route, plipconfig, slattach, mii-tool, iptunnel and ipmaddr.
→ ncat – improved re-implementation of the venerable netcat.
→ netcat – networking utility for reading/writing network connections.
→ nethogs – a small ‘net top’ tool.
→ Netperf – Network bandwidth Testing.
→ netplan – Netplan is a utility for easily configuring
→ networking on a linux system.
→ netsniff-ng – Swiss army knife for daily Linux network plumbing.
→ netwatch – monitoring Network Connections.
→ ngrep – grep applied to the network layer.
→ nload – display network usage.
→ nmap – network discovery and security auditing.
→ nmcli – a command-line tool for controlling NetworkManager and reporting network status.
→ nmtui – provides a text interface to configure networking by controlling NetworkManager.
→ nslookup – query Internet name servers interactively.
→ ping – send icmp echo_request to network hosts to test connectivity.
→ route – show / manipulate the IP routing table.
→ slurm – network load monitor.
→ snort – Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System.
→ smokeping –  keeps track of your network latency.
→ socat – establishes two bidirectional byte streams and transfers data between them.
→ speedometer – Measure and display the rate of data across a network.
→ speedtest-cli – test internet bandwidth using speedtest.net
→ ss – utility to investigate sockets.
→ ssh –  secure system administration and file transfers over insecure networks.
→ tcpdump – command-line packet analyzer.
→ tcptrack – Displays information about tcp connections on a network interface.
→ telnet – user interface to the TELNET protocol.
→  tracepath – very similar function to traceroute.
→  traceroute – print the route packets trace to network host.
→  vnStat – network traffic monitor.
→  websocat – Connection forwarder from/to web sockets to/from usual sockets, in style of socat.
→  wget –  retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS.
→  Wireless Tools for Linux – includes iwconfig, iwlist, iwspy, iwpriv and ifrename.
→  Wireshark – network protocol analyzer.

That’s it!

Hopefully you will find this post useful.

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