ethtool

Python ethtool module

Python bindings for the ethtool kernel interface

The Python ethtool module allows querying and partially controlling network interfaces, driver, and hardware settings.

.. warning:: This is the new upstream for python-ethtool maintained by Fedora's Python SIG. We ported it to Python 3 and only maintain it for the current tools to keep working. No new development is happening. This is a deprecated package. If you are considering to start using this, please don't. We recommend netifaces <https://pypi.org/project/netifaces/>_ instead.

Installation

The easiest way to install ethtool is to use your distribution packages repositories. For example:

Fedora: sudo dnf install python3-ethtool or sudo dnf install python2-ethtool

Ubuntu: sudo apt install python-ethtool

In order to install ethtool from source or PyPI install its dependencies first:

Fedora: sudo dnf install libnl3-devel gcc redhat-rpm-config python3-devel

Ubuntu: sudo apt install python3 python3-setuptools libpython3.6-dev libnl-route-3-dev

And then install ethtool:

from PyPI: pip3 install ethtool

from source: python3 setup.py install

Usage

ethtool may be used as a Python library::

>>> import ethtool
>>> ethtool.get_active_devices()
['lo', 'enp0s31f6', 'wlp4s0', 'virbr0', 'docker0', 'virbr1', 'eth0', 'tun0']
>>> ethtool.get_ipaddr('lo')
'127.0.0.1'

The ethtool package also provides the pethtool and pifconfig utilities. More example usage may be gathered from their sources, pethtool.py <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool/blob/master/scripts/pethtool>_ and pifconfig.py <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool/blob/master/scripts/pethtool>_.

pethtool mimics behavior of the ethtool utility, but does not support all options.

e.g., to get driver information on the eth0 interface::

$ pethtool -i eth0
driver: cdc_ether
bus-info: usb-0000:00:14.0-4.1.3

Analogically, pifconfig mimics ifconfig in usage. It may be used to view information on an interface::

$ pifconfig lo
lo        
      inet addr:127.0.0.1   Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope: host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING

Further usage information may be found in the respective manpages for pethtool <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool/blob/master/man/pethtool.8.asciidoc>_ and pifconfig <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool/blob/master/man/pifconfig.8.asciidoc>_.

Tests

Tests may be run by tox.

Authors

• Andy Grover
• Antoni S. Puimedon
• Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo
• Bohuslav Kabrda
• Braňo Náter
• Dave Malcolm
• David S. Miller
• David Sommerseth
• Harald Hoyer
• Charalampos Stratakis
• Jeff Garzik
• Lumir Balhar
• Miro Hrončok
• Miroslav Suchý
• Ruben Kerkhof
• Sanqui
• Yaakov Selkowitz

Current maintainers

• Lumír Balhar [e-mail]
• Miro Hrončok [e-mail]
• Charalampos Stratakis [e-mail]

Contributing

Feel free to help us with improving test coverage, porting to Python 3 or anything else. Issues and PRs on GitHub <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool>_ are welcome.

License

The Python ethtool project is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2.0, see COPYING <https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool/blob/master/COPYING>_.

Changelog

0.15

Thu Jul 29 2021 Lumír Balhar [e-mail]

• Tests are now skipped for wireguard devices
• pifconfig is now able to show more than one IPv4 address per interface
• pifconfig supports interfaces with no IPv4 address

0.14

Wed Sep 12 2018 Miro Hrončok [e-mail]

• Declared project as bugfix only from now on
• Support Python 3.7
• Fix important issues reported by static analysis
• Fix installation on non-UTF-8 locales on Python 3.5 and 3.6
• Added set_gso(), get_gro() and set_gro() functions
• Added installation instructions

0.13

Tue Jun 13 2017 Miro Hrončok [e-mail]

• First release on PyPI
• Supports both Python 2.7 and 3.5+
• Dropped support for Python 2.6
• Upstream URL changed to https://github.com/fedora-python/python-ethtool
• Introduced a basic README file
• PEP7 and PEP8 (code style) improvements
• Fix compilation errors on modern Fedoras

0.12

Tue Mar 21 2017 Charalampos Stratakis [e-mail]

• First attempt at python3 support

0.11

Thu May 8 2014 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Improved error handling several places
• Ensure that we get a valid libnl NETLINK connection when connecting
• URL updates to SPEC file

0.10

Fri Jan 10 2014 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Not really a full release, but a preliminary release to get more wide testing
• FSF Copyright updates
• Build fixes
• Mostly code cleanup

0.9

Wed Dec 11 2013 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Fixed get_active_devices() for IPv6 only interfaces
• Moved from libnl1 to libnl3
• Refactor PyNetlink*Address implementation

0.8

Tue Feb 19 2013 David Malcolm [e-mail]

• Enable IPv6 in pifethtool example
• Code cleanup, fixing buffer overflows, memory leaks, etc

0.7

Mon Apr 11 2011 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Fixed several memory leaks (commit aa2c20e697af, abc7f912f66d)
• Improved error checking towards NULL values(commit 4e928d62a8e3)
• Fixed typo in pethtool --help (commit 710766dc722)
• Only open a NETLINK connection when needed (commit 508ffffbb3c)
• Added man page for pifconfig and pethtool (commit 9f0d17aa532, rhbz#638475)
• Force NETLINK socket to close on fork() using FD_CLOEXEC (commit 1680cbeb40e)

0.6

Wed Jan 19 2011 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Don't segfault if we don't receive any address from rtnl_link_get_addr()
• Remove errornous file from MANIFEST
• Added ethtool.version string constant
• Avoid duplicating IPv6 address information
• import sys module in setup.py (Miroslav Suchy)

0.5

Mon Aug 9 2010 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• Fixed double free issue (commit c52ed2cbdc5b851ebc7b)

0.4

Wed Apr 28 2010 David Sommerseth [e-mail]

• David Sommerseth is now taking over the maintenance of python-ethtool
• New URLs for upstream source code
• Added new API: ethtool.get_interfaces_info() - returns list of etherinfo objects
• Added support retrieving for IPv6 address, using etherinfo::get_ipv6_addresses()

0.3

Tue Aug 26 2008 Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo [e-mail]

• Add get_flags method from the first python-ethtool contributor, yay
• Add pifconfig command, that mimics the ifconfig tool using the bindings available

0.2

Wed Aug 20 2008 Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo [e-mail]

• Expand description and summary fields, as part of the fedora review process.

0.1

Tue Dec 18 2007 Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo [e-mail]

• Get ethtool code from rhpl 0.212