ip-address (8)

ip [ OPTIONS ] address { COMMAND | help }

ip address { add | del } IFADDR dev STRING

ip address { show | flush } [ dev STRING ] [ scope SCOPE-ID ] [ to PREFIX ] [ FLAG-LIST ] [ label PATTERN ]

IFADDR := PREFIX | ADDR peer PREFIX [ broadcast ADDR ] [ anycast ADDR ] [ label STRING ] [ scope SCOPE-ID ]

SCOPE-ID := [ host | link | global | NUMBER ]

FLAG-LIST := [ FLAG-LIST ] FLAG

FLAG := [ permanent | dynamic | secondary | primary | tentative | deprecated | dadfailed | temporary ]

The address is a protocol (IP or IPv6) address attached to a network device. Each device must have at least one address to use the corresponding protocol. It is possible to have several different addresses attached to one device. These addresses are not discriminated, so that the term alias is not quite appropriate for them and we do not use it in this document.

The ip address command displays addresses and their properties, adds new addresses and deletes old ones.

ip address add - add new protocol address.

dev NAME

the name of the device to add the address to.

local ADDRESS (default)

the address of the interface. The format of the address depends on the protocol. It is a dotted quad for IP and a sequence of hexadecimal halfwords separated by colons for IPv6. The ADDRESS may be followed by a slash and a decimal number which encodes the network prefix length.

peer ADDRESS

the address of the remote endpoint for pointopoint interfaces. Again, the ADDRESS may be followed by a slash and a decimal number, encoding the network prefix length. If a peer address is specified, the local address cannot have a prefix length. The network prefix is associated with the peer rather than with the local address.

broadcast ADDRESS

the broadcast address on the interface.

It is possible to use the special symbols '+' and '-' instead of the broadcast address. In this case, the broadcast address is derived by setting/resetting the host bits of the interface prefix.

label NAME

Each address may be tagged with a label string. In order to preserve compatibility with Linux-2.0 net aliases, this string must coincide with the name of the device or must be prefixed with the device name followed by colon.

scope SCOPE_VALUE

the scope of the area where this address is valid. The available scopes are listed in file /etc/iproute2/rt_scopes. Predefined scope values are:

global - the address is globally valid.

site - (IPv6 only) the address is site local, i.e. it is valid inside this site.

link - the address is link local, i.e. it is valid only on this device.

host - the address is valid only inside this host.

ip address delete - delete protocol address

Arguments: coincide with the arguments of ip addr add. The device name is a required argument. The rest are optional. If no arguments are given, the first address is deleted.

ip address show - look at protocol addresses

dev NAME (default)

name of device.

scope SCOPE_VAL

only list addresses with this scope.

to PREFIX

only list addresses matching this prefix.

label PATTERN

only list addresses with labels matching the PATTERN. PATTERN is a usual shell style pattern.

up

only list running interfaces.

dynamic and permanent

(IPv6 only) only list addresses installed due to stateless address configuration or only list permanent (not dynamic) addresses.

tentative

(IPv6 only) only list addresses which have not yet passed duplicate address detection.

deprecated

(IPv6 only) only list deprecated addresses.

dadfailed

(IPv6 only) only list addresses which have failed duplicate address detection.

temporary

(IPv6 only) only list temporary addresses.

primary and secondary

only list primary (or secondary) addresses.

ip address flush - flush protocol addresses

This command flushes the protocol addresses selected by some criteria.

This command has the same arguments as show. The difference is that it does not run when no arguments are given.

Warning: This command (and other flush commands described below) is pretty dangerous. If you make a mistake, it will not forgive it, but will cruelly purge all the addresses.

With the -statistics option, the command becomes verbose. It prints out the number of deleted addresses and the number of rounds made to flush the address list. If this option is given twice, ip address flush also dumps all the deleted addresses in the format described in the previous subsection.

ip address show dev eth0

Shows the addresses assigned to network interface eth0

ip addr add 2001:0db8:85a3::0370:7334/64 dev eth1

Adds an IPv6 address to network interface eth1

ip addr flush dev eth4

Removes all addresses from device eth4

ip(8)

Original Manpage by Michail Litvak <[email protected]>