Why do "ip address" or "ip link" report "state UNKNOWN" for some devices?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • Why do ip address or ip link report state UNKNOWN for some devices?
$ ip link show lo
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Network interfaces
  • ip command from iproute2 network command suite

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