This repo includes 3 example utilities using libnetlink to do the same operations you can do with the iproute2 'ip' command. You typically want to do this when embedding network operations in your own application (e.g your C application needs to create a macvlan) and you don't want to use ugly system() calls to the ip command. Not to mention calling system() on a multi-threaded application is looking for trouble :)

You will need the rpm package iproute-devel installed, or an equivalent package for your distribution. This is the package that ships libnetlink.a, the library required to compile this repo. To compile just type make

The repo provides 3 example applications:

Usage: addvlan <device> <name>

This is the same as ip link add link <device> <name> type macvlan

usage: rmif <device>

This is the same as ip link delete <device>

usage: ifstate <device> [up|down]

This is the same as ip link set <device> up|down

If you need information about what other parameters/commands are available, you can always browse the iproute2 repo: https://github.com/shemminger/iproute2

The code there is nicely organized