Top 5 Linux Utilities for Network Engineers

In a recent NetBeez webinar, I presented on “Top 5 Utilities for Network Engineers”, which ended up being one of the most popular webinars we have ever hosted! I talked about the command-line Linux utilities that you can use for troubleshooting, but the time constraints of a live webinar only allowed for a quick demonstration. In saying that, I would like to further explain the utility commands for you to follow along at your own pace.

How can you get access to a Linux console?

If you are new to Linux, there are many options to gain access to a Linux box for free (or at a very low cost):

  1. Mac OS: if you are a Mac user all you have to do is a open a terminal window. The operating system itself is based on Unix, which is a close cousin to Linux.
  2. Windows 10: you can use Linux-like environments such as Cygwin. In addition, in 2016, Windows 10 started supporting Linux as a native application.
  3. Cloud Linux: most major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, have free-tier offerings that you can use to spin up a Linux box in the cloud.
  4. Linux box: if you want to have your own Linux box, considerinvesting $50-$100 on a single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi, Odroid, or Beaglebone. Also, if you have an old laptop you can install Linux on it.

All of the utility examples below were performed on Debian-based Linux. Note: If you are using some other distribution, things might be slightly different.

The first thing that you need to do for each command is to install it on the OS (if it’s not installed already). Here are the commands to install the five utilities:

sudo apt-get install nmap
sudo apt-get install tcpdump
sudo apt-get install netcat
sudo apt-get install iperf
sudo apt-get install python-pip; sudo pip install speedtest-cli

Nmap (1997)

Nmap stands for network mapper – it’s mainly used for network security scans.

The nmap ping sweep scans a subnet for any available hosts; it’s one of the most basic commands you can run. Here is what it found in my local subnet:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ nmap -sP 172.31.0.0/24
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017-11-06 10:59 PST
Nmap scan report for 172.31.0.167
Host is up (-0.100s latency).
MAC Address: B8:27:EB:96:CF:1F (Raspberry Pi Foundation)
Nmap scan report for 172.31.0.202
Host is up (0.00098s latency).
MAC Address: B8:27:EB:AA:1C:E9 (Raspberry Pi Foundation)
Nmap scan report for 172.31.0.25
Host is up.
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (11 hosts up) scanned in 5.35 seconds

It took nmap 5.35 seconds to get information on IPs, MACs, OUI lookups, and latencies for each host.
If I scan a specific host I get the following details which include open port information:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ nmap  172.31.0.1
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017-11-06 12:06 PST
Nmap scan report for 172.31.0.1
Host is up (0.026s latency).
Not shown: 916 closed ports, 81 filtered ports
PORT    STATE SERVICE
22/tcp  open  ssh
25/tcp  open  smtp
111/tcp open  rpcbind
MAC Address: 00:01:C0:15:A3:32 (CompuLab)
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.67 seconds

NMAP OS fingerprinting

And if I want more details on the operating system I can use the “-O” option as follows:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ nmap -O 172.31.0.1
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017-11-06 12:04 PST
Nmap scan report for 172.31.0.1
Host is up (0.019s latency).
Not shown: 916 closed ports, 81 filtered ports
PORT    STATE SERVICE
22/tcp  open  ssh
25/tcp  open  smtp
111/tcp open  rpcbind
MAC Address: 00:01:C0:15:A3:32 (CompuLab)
Device type: general purpose
Running: Linux 2.6.X|3.X
OS CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:2.6 cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:3
OS details: Linux 2.6.32 - 3.2
Network Distance: 1 hop
OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at 
http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 3.85 seconds

The operating system scan took more than double the time of the previous scan. Keep this in mind that when you try to do operating-system scans fors subnets with many hosts, since it might take awhile to get the results back.

Using NMAP for network scanning

A common use case for nmap is to scan a network before and after a change to make sure that all hosts are connected back to the network after the change. Here is a one-line bash loop that runs the ping sweep command every 5 seconds.

while [ `clear` ]; do nmap -sP 172.31.0.0/24; sleep 5; done

You run this command until you verify all hosts are back, and terminate it by hitting Ctlr+C on your console.
For each one of these utilities you can get detailed information about their capabilities and options by reading their manual. On the console you can just type “man nmap” or “nmap -help”.

The manual can be difficult to read and might be complicated for novice users, in which case, you can find tons of tutorials and guides online. For example, here is an excellent nmap tutorial with many more details: https://hackertarget.com/nmap-tutorial/The operating system scan took more than double the time of the previous scan. Keep this in mind that when you try to do operating-system scans fors subnets with many hosts, since it might take awhile to get the results back.

A common use case for nmap is to scan a network before and after a change to make sure that all hosts are connected back to the network after the change. Here is a one-line bash loop that runs the ping sweep command every 5 seconds.

Tcpdump (1998)

As the name suggests, tcpdump dumps network traffic onto your terminal window. The simplest command you can use is “tcpdump -i eth0”, which dumps all packets going in and out of interface eth0. Here is a short snippet of the output:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ tcpdump -i eth0

tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode

listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes

12:22:55.983450 IP 172.31.0.25.ssh > 172.30.10.202.56410: Flags [P.], seq 

1483392643:1483392831, ack 3843673783, win 168, length 188

Sorting through all packets going in and out of an interface can be overwhelming. To be productive with tcpdump you need to use the right filters to display only the important packets and traffic. As an example, I can filter packets by host 172.30.10.202 with tcpdmp -i eth0 host 172.30.10.202 or tcpdmp -i eth0 port 53

A common tcpdump use case is to connect your Linux box to a switch’s span port and capture all traffic. In that case, using the right filters is the key to looking at the packets relevant to your issue.

Here is an excellent tutorial and a filter breakdown for tcp dump.

Netcat (2007)

Netcat allows you to create connections between two hosts with TCP and UDP traffic. To run this example, you can use two different hosts, or open two console windows on the same host.

We can create a server-client communication by having the server listen on port 20000 for connections with the command netcat -l -p 20000.On the client console we can connect to this server with netcat 172.31.0.25 20000. Once the connection is established, anything that we type on client window will appear on the server window and vice versa.

Server window:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ netcat -l -p 20000
Hello World!

Client Window:

172.31.0.142@netbeez.net$ netcat 172.31.0.25 20000
Hello World!

You can use this server-client communication to test if a firewall successfully blocks traffic by setting up the server behind the firewall and trying to connect to it from the outside world.

Netcat can also be used as a “quick-and-dirty” way to move files between hosts. Let’s assume we want to move log_file.txt. Here are the the commands you need to run:

Start on the receiving host with:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ netcat -l -p 20000 > received_file.txt

On the sending host:

172.31.0.142@netbeez.net$ netcat 172.31.0.25 20000 < log_file.txt

Keep in mind that the communication is not encrypted in this case.

iPerf (2003)

Iperf is a performance testing tool that sends TCP or UDP traffic between two hosts and measures the bandwidth it can generate. There are two versions of iPerf. Iperf 2 is the most prolific one since it’s older and more widely used. Iperf 3 is more recent, and although it’s very similar in functionality with Iperf 2, they are incompatible to each other. At NetBeez, we use Iperf 2.

iPerf needs a source and a destination host to send and receive the traffic. The first step is to start the iPerf server on the receiving side which will wait for iPerf traffic to be sent. The default option is to send TCP traffic, in which case it tries to push as much bandwidth as possible between the source and the destination.

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  4] local 172.31.0.25 port 5001 connected with 172.31.0.142 port 48180
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]  0.0-10.0 sec   112 MBytes  94.1 Mbits/sec

On the sending side we start the iPerf client with the command:

172.31.0.142@netbeez.net$ iperf -c 172.31.0.25
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 172.31.0.25, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 172.31.0.142 port 48180 connected with 172.31.0.25 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   112 MBytes  94.2 Mbits/sec

After 10 seconds the test is over, and we see that the client and server were able to achieve 94.2 Mbps.

For UDP traffic we have to use the “-u” option as follows on the server side:

172.31.0.25@netbeez.net$ iperf -s -u
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on UDP port 5001
Receiving 1470 byte datagrams
UDP buffer size:  208 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 172.31.0.25 port 5001 connected with 172.31.0.142 port 48295
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth        Jitter   Lost/Total Datagrams
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  3.58 MBytes  3.00 Mbits/sec   0.026 ms    0/ 2552 (0%)

On the sending side, we also have to use the “-u” option. In addition, we can determine the amount of UDP traffic by using the “-b” option as follows:

172.31.0.142@netbeez.net$ iperf -c 172.31.0.25 -u -b 3M
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 172.31.0.25, UDP port 5001
Sending 1470 byte datagrams
UDP buffer size:  160 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 172.31.0.142 port 48295 connected with 172.31.0.25 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  3.58 MBytes  3.00 Mbits/sec
[  3] Sent 2552 datagrams
[  3] Server Report:
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  3.58 MBytes  3.00 Mbits/sec   0.025 ms    0/ 2552 (0%)

As requested the client was able to send 3 Mbps of UDP traffic to the server. In addition, UDP iPerf gives the jitter (0.025 ms) and packet loss (0/2552 0%) at the end.
A common use case of iPerf is to prove that “It’s not the Network!”, by verifying that the network can pass a certain amount of traffic.

Speedtest (2016)

This is the console version of the Ookla speedtest.net that you can run on your browser. At this time, ookla has close to 5000 servers around the world that can be used to measure how much upload and download bandwidth can be achieved. The difference with iPerf is that, with the speedtest, you don’t have control of the server that is used to test your bandwidth performance. For example, the speedtest measurements can be affected by the number of concurrent tests a server is running.

Here is how to run the speedtest on your console:

$ speedtest 
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration... 
Testing from Comcast Cable (73.15.174.191)... 
Retrieving speedtest.net server list... 
Selecting best server based on ping... 
Hosted by SoftLayer Technologies, Inc. (San Jose, CA) [4.34 km]: 24.371 ms Testing download speed...................................... 
Download: 57.64 Mbit/s Testing upload speed......................................... 
Upload: 6.22 Mbit/s

As you can see, it informs me that the server it selected is maintained by Softlayer Technologies, Inc in San Jose (my current location) with latency 24.371 ms. The download and upload speeds achieved are 57.64 Mbps and 6.22 Mbps.

NetBeez GUI Console

All of these tie with the NetBeez dashboard through the GUI console. In a nutshell, NetBeez captures the user experience by using wired and wireless hardware sensors deployed in a WAN or WLAN network. Each sensor can run automatic tests such as ping, DNS, HTTP, iperf, and speedtest. Since each sensor is a Linux box, NetBeez gives console access to them through the GUI.

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