Deprecated Linux Commands you Should Avoid to Use Right Now and Use Their Replacements

I can surely say you were still using the deprecated Linux commands, knowingly or unknowingly. It’s not your fault as you and I are glued to those commands due to strong habits.

However, new Linux users are also involved in using those commands due to reading outdated online articles or books.

That’s the reason we always keep our articles up to date with the latest market adoption.

And most of the commands are network-based, which are deprecated and not being shipped in some of the popular Linux distributions.

Below is the list of the well-known commands with their replacements.

CommandsReplacements
ifconfigip a
arpip n
iptunnelip tunnel
nameifip link
routeip r
iwconfigiw
netstatss
iptablesnftables
egrepgrep -E
fgrepgrep -F
scprsync or sftp
(For debian-based distro’s)
apt-get
apt

You may have noticed most of the above commands belong to the net-tools packages and the rest of the others are related to networking usage.

If you still keep using those deprecated commands, it shouldn’t cause you any security issues. However, you will be left out of the latest features added to the Linux kernel’s networking stack in the last decade, which could improve your security.

Starting with the ifconfig command

I can say without any hesitation that I still use the ifconfig command to check the IP address on Linux systems and other useful information about the network interface card.

However, the ifconfig command was deprecated with the net-tools package a decade ago, and all the functionality of the ifconfig command can be found in the ip command.

arp, route, iptunnel, nameif, netstat shutdown with net-tools

The net-tools packed commands are deprecated due to a lack of support a long time ago. although distributions have been maintaining it since.

You can install net-tools using the sudo apt install net-tools command in your Debian-based distribution. However, I will not recommend it for use in the professional line of work.

It is good to switch to the better alternatives mentioned in the above table.

Is iwconfig deprecated? How do I enable monitor mode now!

My major reason for using the iwconfig command was to enable monitor mode on my network interface card. However, this job was taken by iw command.

Even though the command may be deprecated, I’ve found the latest article published by some renowned source using the iwconfig command to enable monitor mode.

I’m not criticising someone; I just want to express how friendly this command was for the penetration tester and, of course, other Linux users.

scp Unsecure in Front of Alternatives?

scp is an essential command for SSH users to copy files between two Linux machines connected over the network. The scp shares the same syntax and operations used in the cp command, making it easier to use in the real world.

However, the scp command is facing problems revolving around the security vulnerability due to not getting updates.

For that reason, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 deprecated the SCP protocol, and others in the line to get deprecate.

It has been in debate for a while whether to use scp or not, and RHEL based-distributions are already not shipping it in their distros. It would be good to use another alternative such as rsync or sftp commands.

egrep and fgrep are deprecated?

Why introduce two different commands that can be integrated into the existing command?

  • The egrep command is used to perform regular expressions and prints out the lines that match the pattern.
  • The fgrep command is used to search for fixed-character strings in a file or files

Both commands belong to the family of grep but abandon into separate functions. However, after realizing the sins, grep inherited both commands into its own and they can be operated as flags with the grep command.

Instead of the egrep command, use grep -E and for fgrep use grep -F.

iptables is abandon by its own developer?

iptables was a Linux command-line tool for system administrators to allow them to manage incoming and outgoing traffic creating a firewall.

It is still openly used to configure the IP packet filter rules of the Linux kernel firewall, implemented as different Netfilter modules.

Despite its success, iptables has several architectural limitations that cannot be resolved without any fundamental design changes.

Due to this, nftables was introduced, providing a new packet classification framework that aims to replace the existing iptables, ip6tables, arptables and ebtables facilities. It aims to resolve a lot of limitations that exist in the venerable ip/ip6tables tools.

Is apt-get the same as an apt command?

Let’s be straight, apt is the subset of the apt-get and apt-cache commands being a more modern tool for installing and managing packages on Debian-based distributions.

However, the apt-get command is still accessible from the command line and there is no proof of depreciation, but as regular Linux users, I would suggest going with the apt command.

Conclusion

Here, I’m not forcing you to abandon all the deprecated or going to be deprecated commands and switch to their alternative. The aim of this article was to inform you of the commands that are deprecated or going to be deprecated.

I hope you find this article useful. Also, let us know your favourite command from the mentioned list.

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