Re: "ip help" output is an error

[Dmitri Seletski <drjoms@gmail.com>]

I never done C or github submit before, I hope I did it right way.

Regards

Dmitri Seletski

On 6/21/26 16:21, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> 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.