"ip help" output is an error

"ip help" output is an error

[Dmitri Seletski]

Hello iproute2 maintainers,

I am reporting an inconsistency regarding the exit status of the ip help 
command.

Current Behavior:
When running ip help, the command prints the help documentation to 
stdout, but exits with a non-zero status (error). This causes issues in 
shell scripts that rely on exit codes for control flow.

Steps to reproduce:
bash

# This returns "FAIL" because the exit code is non-zero
if ip help > /dev/null; then
     echo "SUCCESS"
else
     echo "FAIL"
fi

Expected Behavior:
Since the command successfully performs the requested task (displaying 
help information) and does not encounter a system error, it should 
return an exit code of 0.

Context:
This behavior breaks standard Bash logic for automation. For example:
ip help && echo "This will not execute"

"ip help |grep br" - this will bring no result.

Current version tested: iproute2-6.19.0

Thank you for your time and for maintaining this tool.

Regards,
Dmitri Seletski

Re: "ip help" output is an error

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:36:31 +0100
Dmitri Seletski <drjoms@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello iproute2 maintainers,
> 
> I am reporting an inconsistency regarding the exit status of the ip help 
> command.
> 
> Current Behavior:
> When running ip help, the command prints the help documentation to 
> stdout, but exits with a non-zero status (error). This causes issues in 
> shell scripts that rely on exit codes for control flow.
> 
> Steps to reproduce:
> bash
> 
> # This returns "FAIL" because the exit code is non-zero
> if ip help > /dev/null; then
>      echo "SUCCESS"
> else
>      echo "FAIL"
> fi
> 
> Expected Behavior:
> Since the command successfully performs the requested task (displaying 
> help information) and does not encounter a system error, it should 
> return an exit code of 0.
> 
> Context:
> This behavior breaks standard Bash logic for automation. For example:
> ip help && echo "This will not execute"
> 
> "ip help |grep br" - this will bring no result.
> 
> Current version tested: iproute2-6.19.0
> 
> Thank you for your time and for maintaining this tool.
> 
> Regards,
> Dmitri Seletski
> 
> 

Yes iproute2 doesn't do a great job of handling error codes
with usage vs help. Its a bug and no one has bothered to fix it.