Docker Network Tools

A Docker image with various network tools pre-installed.

Usage

To launch a Bash session in your terminal:

docker run --rm -it jonlabelle/network-tools

To launch a Bash session in your terminal on arm64:

docker run --rm -it --platform linux/arm64 jonlabelle/network-tools

To run a command directly and exit when finished (nmap in this case):

docker run --rm -it jonlabelle/network-tools nmap -v 10.0.10.0/24

NOTE: To pull from GitHub Container Registry, instead of Docker Hub, replace jonlabelle/network-tools with ghcr.io/jonlabelle/network-tools.

Included tools

Click each section below to expand and view the complete list of tools.

Bandwidth - Tools for measuring network bandwidth and traffic

Tool	Description	Resources
nethogs	Top-like monitor for network traffic.	examples
nload	Console network traffic and bandwidth monitor.	examples
iperf	A tool to measure IP bandwidth using UDP or TCP.	examples
speedtest-cli	CLI for testing bandwidth using speedtest.net.	usage

DNS - Tools for querying and managing DNS

Tool	Description	Resources
arpaname	Translate IP addresses to the corresponding ARPA names.	man page
ddns-confgen	DDNS key generation tool.	man page
delv	DNS lookup and validation utility.	man page
dig	DNS lookup utility.	examples
dnsdomainname	Show the system's DNS domain name.	man page
dnstap-read	Print dnstap data in human-readable form.	README
domainname	Show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name.	man page
drill	DNS(SEC) query tool ala dig.	examples
host	DNS lookup utility.	examples
hostname	Show or set the system's host name.	examples
libidn	Encode/decode library for internationalized domain names.	examples
mdig	DNS pipelined lookup utility.	man page
named-checkzone	Zone file validity checking or converting tool.	man page
named-compilezone	Zone file validity checking or converting tool.	man page
named-journalprint	Print zone journal in human-readable form.	man page
named-rrchecker	Syntax checker for individual DNS resource records.	man page
nisdomainname	Show or set system's NIS/YP domain name.	man page
nslookup	Query Internet name servers interactively.	examples
nsupdate	Dynamic DNS update utility.	man page
rndc-confgen	RNDC key generation tool.	man page
tsig-keygen	DDNS key generation tool.	man page
ypdomainname	Show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name.	man page

HTTP - Tools for interacting with HTTP servers

Tool	Description	Resources
ab	Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool.	examples
curl	Tool for transferring data with URLs.	examples
grpcurl	Command-line tool for interacting with gRPC servers	examples
jq	A lightweight and flexible command line JSON processor.	examples
oath-toolkit-oathtool	Generate and validate one-time passwords.	man page
wget	A network utility to retrieve files from the web.	examples

IP routing - Tools for managing IP routing tables

Tool	Description	Resources
bridge	Show / manipulate bridge addresses and devices.	man page
ctstat	Unified linux network statistics.	man page
genl	Generic netlink utility frontend.	man page
ifcfg	Simplistic script which replaces ifconfig IP management.	man page
ifstat	Handy utility to read network interface statistics.	man page
lnstat	Unified linux network statistics.	man page
nstat	Network statistics tools.	man page
route	Show / manipulate the IP routing table.	man page
routef	Flush network routes.	man page
routel	List routes with pretty output format.	README
rtacct	Monitor kernel SNMP counters and network interface statistics.	man page
rtmon	Listens to and monitors RTnetlink.	man page
rtpr	Replace backslashes with newlines.	man page
rtstat	Unified linux network statistics.	man page

Interface and address management - Tools for configuring network interfaces and addresses

Tool	Description	Resources
ifconfig	Configure a network interface.	examples
ipcalc	Network IP calculator.	man page
ipmaddr	Adds, deletes, and displays multicast addresses.	man page
macchanger	View and manipulate the MAC address of network interfaces.	man page
nameif	Name network interfaces based on MAC addresses.	man page
nftables	Netfilter tables userspace tools	man page
plipconfig	Fine tune PLIP device parameters.	man page
rarp	Manipulate the system RARP table.	man page
slattach	Attach a network interface to a serial line.	man page

Packet analysis - Tools for capturing and analyzing network packets

Tool	Description	Resources
fping	Search for network packets on an interface.	examples
hping3	A ping-like TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer.	examples
ngrep	Search for network packets on an interface.	examples
tcpdump	Dump and analyze traffic on a network.	examples
tshark	Network protocol analyzer (console version).	man page

Discovery and scanning - Tools for discovering hosts and scanning ports

Tool	Description	Resources
arp-scan	Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) packet scanner.	examples
arp	Manipulate the system ARP cache.	man page
arping	Send ARP REQUEST to a neighbor host.	man page
clockdiff	Measure clock difference between hosts.	man page
gping	Ping, but with a graph.	usage
masscan	Internet-scale port scanner.	examples
netstat	Displays network-related information.	examples
ninfod	Respond to IPv6 Node Information Queries.	man page
nmap	Network Security Scanner.	examples
nping	Network packet generation tool/ping utility.	examples
ping6	Send IP6 ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts.	-
ping	Send IP4 ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts.	-
rarpd	Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) daemon.	man page
rdisc	Network router discovery daemon.	man page

Transmission and communication - Tools for sending and receiving data over the network

Tool	Description	Resources
iptunnel	Creates, deletes, and displays configured tunnels.	documentation
kcat	Non-JVM Apache Kafka producer and consumer.	examples
netcat	The TCP/IP swiss army knife (OpenBSD variant).	examples
openssl	Toolkit for Transport Layer Security (TLS).	examples
socat	Multipurpose relay for binary protocols.	examples
ssh	OpenBSD's SSH client.	examples
telnet	Telnet client from GNU network utilities	examples
tftpd	IPv4 Trivial File Transfer Protocol client.	-

Tracing - Tools for tracing network paths

Tool	Description	Resources
mtr	Full screen ncurses traceroute tool.	examples
tcptraceroute	Display route path using TCP probes.	examples
tracepath6	Traces path to a IP6 network host discovering MTU along this path.	-
tracepath	Traces path to a IP4 network host discovering MTU along this path.	-
traceroute6	Print the route packets trace to IP6 network host.	-

Additional tools - Miscellaneous tools available in the image

Tool	Description	Resources
envsubst	Perform variable substitutions on input.	examples
find	Search for files in a directory hierarchy.	examples
git	Distribute d version control system.	examples
free	Report the amount of free and used memory in the system.	-
kill	Send a signal to a process based on PID.	-
locate	List files in databases that match a pattern.	man page
pgrep	List processes based on name or other attributes.	-
pkill	Send a signal to a process based on name or other attributes.	-
pmap	Report memory map of a process.	-
ps	Report information of processes.	-
pwdx	Report current directory of a process.	-
skill	Obsolete version of pgrep/pkill.	-
slabtop	Display kernel slab cache information in real time.	-
snice	Renice a process.	-
sysctl	Read or Write kernel parameters at run-time.	-
tload	Graphical representation of system load average.	-
top	Dynamic real-time view of running processes.	-
updatedb	Update a file name database.	man page
uptime	Display how long the system has been running.	-
vmstat	Report virtual memory statistics.	-
w	Report logged in users and what they are doing.	-
watch	Execute a program periodically, showing output full-screen.	-
xargs	Build and execute command lines from standard input.	examples

Automated builds

This image is automatically built and published:

• Weekly: Every Sunday at 1:43 AM UTC to ensure the latest security updates and package versions are included. This weekly schedule ensures that even if no code changes are made, the base Alpine Linux image and all installed network tools receive the latest security patches and updates.
• On commits: Whenever changes are pushed to the main branch, ensuring immediate availability of new features or fixes
• Manual: Can be triggered manually via GitHub Actions workflow dispatch for emergency updates or testing

Images are published to both Docker Hub and GitHub Container Registry with multi-architecture support (linux/amd64 and linux/arm64).

Always use the latest tag

My other Docker repos

• jonlabelle/docker-bfg — Docker image for BFG Repo-Cleaner
• jonlabelle/docker-nmap — Minimal Docker image with Nmap Network Security Scanner pre-installed

License

MIT License