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Network Utility Deprecated in macOS Big Sur
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I for one miss the easy verification of ethernet link speed, ping, and traceroute.
Yes. It's called opening up terminal, typing the command whose name corresponded to the tab in Network Utility of the same name, entering the text you would've put in under the text field and hitting the return key in place of clicking a button.
Incidentally the terminal commands that each of the Network Utility functions corresponded to still live in terminal. You don't need a degree in UNIX or IT certifications to use this. It's REALLY easy.
Why do you need a GUI when the GUI didn't do much other than run the same Terminal commands and give you a window that showed you the EXACT SAME THING as the Terminal output. Are you guys really that Terminal-phobic?
They still exist...in Terminal! Just open Terminal, type "ping" followed by the IP or address you want to ping, and then hit return; the output is IDENTICAL to what you would've had in Network Utility! Same goes for trace route and literally every other function in Network Utility!
It's called Terminal! If you know which tabs you miss in Network Utility, then you already know how to use Terminal to get yourself the EXACT SAME INFORMATION!
Would you be so kind to tell me which command should I use to get the actual negotiated speed of an ethernet adaptor connection?
So far ifconfig seems to output configured speed values (such as “auto”) and not the actual speed at which say, a gigabit capable ethernet interface has actually connected at.
Also, do you find interesting that we have a WiFi icon on the menu bar / control center on which a simple alt/option click gives me the full link details and how there’s not an equivalent ethernet icon, and why should such simple data has to be dig up through a terminal command I have, as pointed out, yet to find?
Yebubbleman good morning.
Not as much scared of Terminal as not knowing what commands to use. Is there a list somewhere? Or alternatively would you paste them like the ping command, i did not know this.
Not as much scared of Terminal as not knowing what commands to use. Is there a list somewhere? Or alternatively would you paste them like the ping command, i did not know this.
I don't know this command off the top of my head. Not to say one doesn't exist, but I don't end up using it super often, if at all. My main point was that every tab that was in Network Utility corresponds to an actual Terminal command and that this is why Network Utility was eventually hidden and then removed altogether. It was a crude GUI on top of UNIX commands that basically spat out the same output, just in a window.
That said, have you explored every option that ifconfig has? Using the man command with given other commands can be super useful for getting exactly what you want out of said commands.
I do and I don't. WiFi has all sorts of other statistics that change frequently; Ethernet tends to be static. Plus, as much as it kills me to say this, it's not being used as regularly. Most Macs don't have it built in anymore.
Whichever command you used the equivalent tab in Network Utility for would function pretty much the same. So, if you wanted to ping www.google.com or 8.8.8.8, you'd open Terminal and type: ping www.google.com
Or: ping 8.8.8.8
and then hit enter and you'd get the same output that you'd otherwise get doing so from Network Utility.
The terminal commands actually have way more functionality. My advice is look up what tabs you had in Network Utility and then open up terminal, and type "man xxxx" where the "xxxx" is replaced with whichever tabs you used in Network Utility. It'll tell you what other things you can do with them, the syntax for using that command, and whole bunches of stuff more. Give it a try!
I don't know this command off the top of my head. Not to say one doesn't exist, but I don't end up using it super often, if at all. My main point was that every tab that was in Network Utility corresponds to an actual Terminal command and that this is why Network Utility was eventually hidden and then removed altogether. It was a crude GUI on top of UNIX commands that basically spat out the same output, just in a window.
That said, have you explored every option that ifconfig has? Using the man command with given other commands can be super useful for getting exactly what you want out of said commands.
I do and I don't. WiFi has all sorts of other statistics that change frequently; Ethernet tends to be static. Plus, as much as it kills me to say this, it's not being used as regularly. Most Macs don't have it built in anymore.
See, my main point is that I already went over the man pages of not just ifconfig but of other commands, I was entertaining the idea of building my own menu bar icon even, this is not being afraid of the Terminal is that what should be (and was, with the Network Utility) the most basic information about your connection such as its speed, now has you going through commands man pages, parameters, regular expressions (grep), and memorizing a command that its probably now large or even changes depending on the interface number assigned to your external ethernet adaptor and so perhaps building a script or at the very least adding an Alias to your terminal source file, all tasks that can change depending on your macOS version or configuration such as if you’re still using bash or have zshell as your terminal, it might not be quite as super casual or out of the box as you make it out to be.
You’re using an OS for a reason, you expected basic things to come baked in because even if you could build your own utility you might have other things to do.
Exactly. I’m fine typing terminal codes when necessary, but for something as simple as ethernet link speed, why should I have to dig around for the terminal commands (yes plural, you need one to figure out which interface, and another to find the link speed) when I used to be able to call up network utility, and find out with no fuss.
OK, so I've started making a tool (a year ago, actually) that tries to bring back some of Apple Network Utility's ideas, and I'd love it if someone could try it out. It has no icon yet, and it's also not code-signed (so you get a scary warning when macOS first runs it) yet — I'd prefer to wait on giving Apple $99 until I know there's some interest.
Right now, only the Info, Netstat, Ping, and Lookup tabs are there. No Traceroute, Whois, Finger, Port Scan yet. Here's what they look like:
![1642117453876.png]( "1642117453876.png")
![1642117504851.png]( "1642117504851.png")
![1642117523931.png]( "1642117523931.png")
![1642117558925.png]( "1642117558925.png")
There's some additional functionality; for example, the Ping tab lets you ping from a particular interface, and the Lookup tab also lets you see how macOS's and BSD's name DNS cache may differ.
Also, the tabs show you (at the very bottom) what equivalent command you could type into Terminal. You can click around in the GUI, and the "Command" field at the bottom will reflect your changes.
If anyone's into that, the project is at https://github.com/chucker/AltNetworkUtility, and you can get the first public beta from https://github.com/chucker/AltNetwo...nload/1.0-beta7/Alt.Network.Utility-1.0b7.zip. You can also opt into an automatic update check if you like.
Right now, only the Info, Netstat, Ping, and Lookup tabs are there. No Traceroute, Whois, Finger, Port Scan yet. Here's what they look like:
There's some additional functionality; for example, the Ping tab lets you ping from a particular interface, and the Lookup tab also lets you see how macOS's and BSD's name DNS cache may differ.
Also, the tabs show you (at the very bottom) what equivalent command you could type into Terminal. You can click around in the GUI, and the "Command" field at the bottom will reflect your changes.
If anyone's into that, the project is at https://github.com/chucker/AltNetworkUtility, and you can get the first public beta from https://github.com/chucker/AltNetwo...nload/1.0-beta7/Alt.Network.Utility-1.0b7.zip. You can also opt into an automatic update check if you like.
You keep saying this for months or years now, but it doesn't become true. While there definitely ARE some tabs in Network Utility that directly correspond to terminal commands, not all do. There is no terminal command by the name of "Lookup" that gives the IP addresses of a given website, for example.
If you want to impress me (and prove that you're a real expert in using terminal and Unix), provide me with the terminal commands that change the permissions of the User's Documents folder in Monterey to make it possible to change its icon in finder.
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They're not wrong that most of the functionality is available through the command line, but indeed, not all is. I also think this argument is kind of moot. Just because the command line can do something doesn't mean we have to use it for that, when we also have a GUI available.
One item the macOS command line doesn't include by default is port scanning. Apple Network Utility accomplished this with its own built-in tool called `stroke`; I'm not sure of its origins. Personally, I install `nmap` instead.
For lookup, what my tool does is:
- you can choose macOS's directory services (long ago known as "NetInfo"), in which it creates a command line such as dscacheutil -q host -a macrumors.com
- or you can use BSD's, in which case the command line looks like dig a macrumors.com, dig mx macrumors.com, etc., depending on your choice
Apps such as Safari will not go through the BSD pipeline for hostname lookup. In particular, their caching behavior may be different. So you can have situations where tools like nslookup, dig and host tell you one thing, but Safari tells you another thing. That's why I'm also offering dscacheutil, which more closely mimics how many Apple GUI apps do their lookup.
Click on the Folder, Click the padlock, input Password.
Click on the Folder and Paste an Icon onto it, done.
Hmmm, that did not work anymore, I had an Icon set on my Document Folder, can't even recall when I did that, might have been years ago, I deleted the Icon without a problem, pasting it back....not so much.
This is my Custom Document Folder, I restored it from a Time Machine backup.
It's (Custom Icon) done years ago, I have 2 Icon files in there, one from 2004 and another one from 2018.
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Guys, don't get me wrong. I DO know how to get the information I want in Terminal, no help needed. My point was a different one: to show that it is simply WRONG that every tab in Network Utility directly corresponds to the IDENTICALLY NAMED command in Terminal, as Yebubbleman keeps saying over and over again. It doesn't become true through repetition. NSLOOKUP isn't LOOKUP, and there are several ways in macOS to do a DNS lookup - and it certainly doesn't help that they give different results! To try it out, put the web address of your choice into the /etc/host file and point it to localhost - then check what the different tools give you as the IP address. Every tool that has any respect for Unix must give the identical result, 127.0.0.1. but they don't. Apple has deeply messed this up...
Regarding my other point, the icon of the Documents folder in Monterey: this is way more difficult than you all (or most) may think. I have dug way into extended file attributes (which are mostly undocumented as soon as it becomes interesting), and still haven't found how Apple protects the icon of this folder in detail. That's why I challenged Yebubbleman: impress me with a Terminal command that makes the folder icon changeable.
Regarding my other point, the icon of the Documents folder in Monterey: this is way more difficult than you all (or most) may think. I have dug way into extended file attributes (which are mostly undocumented as soon as it becomes interesting), and still haven't found how Apple protects the icon of this folder in detail. That's why I challenged Yebubbleman: impress me with a Terminal command that makes the folder icon changeable.
Why did Apple not just simply give the tool a remake / face-lift, basic stuff for any modern OS we now have to either build ourselves or go hunt for a third-party alternative. I fully agree this goes beyond the "don't be afraid of the Terminal" argument which honestly is very cheap to say it mildly.