How to set a static IP Address from the Command Line in GNU/Linux using ip addr and ip route

Assuming you want to make the following changes to the network device eth0

1. Change the IP to the static value 192.168.1.2
2. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0
3. Set the Default Gateway for the device to be 192.168.1.1

and you want to avoid using ifconfig and route that are obsolete you can perform these changes using the following two commands

sudo ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 dev eth0;
sudo ip route add default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0;

Please note that the netmask is given in CIDR notation (it is the /24 right after the IP of the device in the ip addr command).

A subnet mask (netmask) is a bitmask that encodes the prefix length in quad-dotted notation: 32 bits, starting with a number of 1 bits equal to the prefix length, ending with 0 bits, and encoded in four-part dotted-decimal format: 255.255.255.0. A subnet mask encodes the same information as a prefix length, but predates the advent of CIDR. In CIDR notation, the prefix bits are always contiguous, whereas subnet masks may specify non-contiguous bits.

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing

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