Why is netstat deprecated?

Question

I've heard many times now that it is, and I'm mostly using ss now. But I sometimes get frustrated with differences between the two, and I would love some insight.

Also, I can't be the only one who thinks of Hitler when using ss. Not a great name.

Is there anything more to it than the usual iproute2 fanboyism? — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Apr 23 '16 at 00:18
I agree that `ss` feels a bit clunky compared to `netstat`, but `ip` has always seemed way better than `ifconfig` (just an opinion). — jordanm, Apr 23 '16 at 03:01
It may not be strictly SEesque, but thanks @jordanm for answering the question(s), "What? it is? Well what do I use _instead_? :) — fbicknel, Aug 07 '18 at 15:20

Nux · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-21T12:11:42.170

Found an article on deprecation from 2011. It seems like the whole net-tools package was not maintained for a while and so it was deprecated. In Debian 9 it is not even installed by default. From the project page it seems like there were no updates at least since 2011.

But you can easily install netstat (and e.g. ifconfig) and keep using them. I would probably only use them for listing stuff though.

Installing on Debian 9:

apt-get install net-tools

PS: For more information you might want to see another Q&A about ifconfig deprecation (ifconfig is part of the same package): https://serverfault.com/questions/458628/should-i-quit-using-ifconfig

score -3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 23 '16 at 00:31

-3

Why is netstat deprecated? Because it says so in the man page:

NOTE
   This program is obsolete.  Replacement for netstat is ss.   Replacement
   for  netstat -r is ip route.  Replacement for netstat -i is ip -s link.
   Replacement for netstat -g is ip maddr.

Why did the developers deprecate netstat? I don't know.

It's open source, though. If you want to revive it, make it more useful and get it "undeprecated," feel free to do so.

answered Apr 23 '16 at 00:31

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Your answer is 'because it is' or 'I don't know'? – onlyanegg Apr 23 '16 at 04:47
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@onlyanegg, your question is "Why have I been told that it's deprecated?" or "Why did the developers decide to deprecate it?" – Wildcard Apr 23 '16 at 04:49
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it is 'Why did the developers deprecate it?' – onlyanegg Apr 23 '16 at 04:53
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https://sourceforge.net/p/net-tools/code/ci/77d0c1b2a55c1af31cce4df68da7bf93c8155111/ – Mikel Apr 23 '16 at 05:13
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This doesn't answer anything. How did this get upvoted? – bshacklett Jan 01 '17 at 07:55
What steps should one go through to revive it and get it undeprecated? – traducerad Dec 15 '19 at 12:33

Why is netstat deprecated?

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