linux IfTop (Bandwidth Monitoring)

IFTOP Pre-requisite

1. libpcap : module provides a user-level network packet capture information and statistics.
2. libncurses : is a API programming library that enables programmers to provide text-based interfaces in a terminal.

Install libpcap and libncurses

Installation of the libpcap and libncurses library with YUM command as shown below for error-free iftop installation.

# yum -y install libpcap libpcap-devel ncurses ncurses-devel

Download and Install IFTOP

Download iftop from it’s website with Wget command as shown below.

# wget http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/download/iftop-0.17.tar.gz

Follow the below all commands to install iftop.

# tar -zxvf iftop-0.17.tar.gz
# cd iftop-0.17
# ./configure
# make
# make install

Basic usage of Iftop

Once installation done, go to your console and type iftop command.

# iftop

Sample output of iftop command which shows bandwidth of default interface as shown below.

Monitoring Specific Interface

You can give a specific interface to monitor with -i option.

# iftop -i eth0

Iftop Options and Usage

While running iftop you can use the keys like S, D to see more information like source, destination etc. Please do man iftop if you want to explore more options and tricks. Press ‘q‘ to quit from running windows.

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