Linux display bandwidth usage on network interface by host

by on April 19, 2006 · 6 comments· Last updated October 19, 2007

iftop command listens to network traffic on a named network interface, or on the first interface it can find which looks like an external interface if none is specified, and displays a table of current bandwidth usage by pairs of hosts. iftop is a perfect tool for remote Linux server over ssh session.

iftop must be run by the root or the user who has sufficient permissions to monitor all network traffic on the network interface.

Type iftop command at tge shell prompt to display traffic:
# iftop

However, iftop works best when you use filters. For example, if you want to find out how much bandwidth users are wasting or trying to figure out why the network is slow,
# iftop -f icmp
You can display or analyses packet flowing in and out of the 192.168.1.0/24 network:
# iftop -F 192.168.1.0/24
Disable output for DNS traffic by using filter code such as:
# iftop -f 'not port domain'

iftop has many options read man page for further information.

See also:



You should follow me on twitter here or grab rss feed to keep track of new changes.

Featured Articles:

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Anonymous September 7, 2006 at 1:11 pm

It is a very useful program. This commando shows I deal and the port of a single IP

iftop -P -i any -F 62.165.165.245/32

———————————
My life is
http://www.hechospiscos.com

Reply

2 Artem Nosulchik October 19, 2007 at 11:32 am

It’s also possible to apply filter when iftop is already running: just press “f” button and type filter you wish like:
Net filter> host 192.168.0.7

Reply

3 ahmbay August 29, 2009 at 9:36 am

this is very usefull program. Thanks..

Reply

4 alfin September 10, 2009 at 8:33 pm

thanks, its great
but i still have one question, can iftop change source ip (ex: 192.168.1.2 at picture above) to hostname from each pc that connected?

regrads,..

Reply

5 Penton October 14, 2009 at 4:50 am

marvellous! This application is so useful. I didn’t expect it be to user friendly. :)

Reply

6 blogger February 13, 2012 at 1:44 am

thanks, it works great with my wireless nic.

Reply

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes for your code and commands: <strong> <em> <ol> <li> <u> <ul> <blockquote> <pre> <a href="" title="">
What is 10 + 3 ?
Please leave these two fields as-is:
Solve the simple math so we know that you are a human and not a bot.




Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

Previous post:

Next post: