Network IP address calculator - for subnet and range of host

One of the task installing a new FreeBSD box was dealing with IP addresses. Usually, google a web based calculator would do the trick. But today's task is a bit different.

IPv6. A whole row of hexadecimal spinning in front of my eyes, just to figure out what is the range of IP that is usable. Web based IP calculator (based on java script) are not accessible using console based internet browser (links & lynx).

Spontaneously, searching the apt repository return some very interesting stuff.

Console based IP calculator. sipcalc.

Not only it is intelligent enough to figure out the input but also it is intelligent enough to generate useful output. Surprisingly, the output is scripting friendly (using grep and sed will parse the output).

These are the steps to install it under FreeBSD & Debian based distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) :

Debian - apt-get and apt-cache common operation or usage

Initially there was tar.gz. Packages are distributed through compressed archive. Users will have to de-compress themself then compile it, finally, install it. The famous "configure; make; make install" 3 step. If the installation break the halfway, due to library dependencies, users will have to figure a way to fulfill it. Cross your finger, no more breaks happen after fulfilling the dependencies. Talking about nightmares.

After a while later, Debian come out with a way to manage all these "nightmares". A package system that manages its library dependencies, Advanced Packaging Tools. Since then, installing packages on linux have never been so easy. It not only make installation of packages a fun, but also made patching hassle free. Below are the commonly used operation on apt :