60.27 Network Interface Name

20200211

Various commands provide information that identifies you network interface name(s).

The nmcli command’s connection sub-command will list all known connections (including previous connections that may not be presently active). Only active connections can be listed using the options below, identifying that a Fritz!Box 7490 router is connected by WiFi as device wlp2s0:

$ nmcli connection show --active
NAME            UUID                                  TYPE      DEVICE  
FRITZ!Box 7490  6733e7c2-655c-1234-acb7-04d176f50d6d  wifi      wlp2s0  

That can be abbreviated as:

$ nmcli c s -a

The ifconfig command is commonly used with the -a will list all network interfaces. The example below clips the output to just the WiFi interface:

  $ ifconfig -a
  ...
  wlp2s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
          inet 192.168.178.21  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.178.255
          inet6 fe80::5f23:ba1f:c2a8:5b03  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
          ether 34:e1:2d:0f:f2:99  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
          RX packets 5354294  bytes 7292565916 (7.2 GB)
          RX errors 0  dropped 2  overruns 0  frame 0
          TX packets 3018502  bytes 859283561 (859.2 MB)
          TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
  ...

The -, systemd, resolve command with the command line option --status will list devices and their settings:

  $ systemd-resolve --status
  ...  
  Link 3 (wlp2s0)
        Current Scopes: DNS
         LLMNR setting: yes
  MulticastDNS setting: no
        DNSSEC setting: no
      DNSSEC supported: no
           DNS Servers: 192.168.178.1
            DNS Domain: ~.
                        fritz.box
  ...  


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