Almost a year ago, I wrote about Linux MRTG configuration how-to. However, some user seems to confused with MRTG, most users would like to know – how much traffic actually generated by ADSL/Cable service provider on daily and monthly basis.
MRTG is for network monitoring and it can be use to see how much traffic your server or ADSL router actually generated, however it will not tell you how much megabytes or gigabytes the daily traffic was. For all such home user and people having dedicated single Linux box hosted somewhere remote at IDC/ISP there is a tool called vnStat:
- It is a console-base network traffic monitor for Linux (perfect tool for remote Linux box hosted at ISP)
- It keeps a log of daily and monthly network traffic for the selected network interface(s).
- It collects all data from /proc file system it means normal user can monitor traffic (no need to run vnstat as a root user)
- Easy to setup & configure
- Ease of use
Step # 1: Install vnstat
Debian / Ubuntu Linux user can install vnstat using the apt-get command/apt command, enter:
# apt-get install vnstat
OR
# apt install vnstat
Sample outputs:
Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Suggested packages: vnstati The following NEW packages will be installed: vnstat 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 84.0 kB of archives. After this operation, 259 kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://cdn-fastly.deb.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 vnstat amd64 1.15-2 [84.0 kB] Fetched 84.0 kB in 2s (39.8 kB/s) Selecting previously unselected package vnstat. (Reading database ... 115133 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../vnstat_1.15-2_amd64.deb ... Unpacking vnstat (1.15-2) ... Setting up vnstat (1.15-2) ... Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vnstat.service → /lib/systemd/system/vnstat.service. Processing triggers for systemd (232-25+deb9u1) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ... |
Fedora Linux user type the following dnf command:
# dnf install vnstat
CentOS/RHEL users type the following [nxicmd name=”yum”] after enabling epel repo on CentOS/RHEL 5.x/6.x or RHEL/CentOS 7.x:
# yum install vnstat
Sample outputs:
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirrors.nhanhoa.com * epel: repo.ugm.ac.id * extras: mirrors.nhanhoa.com * updates: mirror.onet.vn Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package vnstat.x86_64 0:1.15-2.el7 will be installed --> Processing Dependency: libgd.so.2()(64bit) for package: vnstat-1.15-2.el7.x86_64 --> Running transaction check ---> Package gd.x86_64 0:2.0.35-26.el7 will be installed --> Processing Dependency: libXpm.so.4()(64bit) for package: gd-2.0.35-26.el7.x86_64 --> Running transaction check ---> Package libXpm.x86_64 0:3.5.11-3.el7 will be installed --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ========================================================================================= Package Arch Version Repository Size ========================================================================================= Installing: vnstat x86_64 1.15-2.el7 epel 125 k Installing for dependencies: gd x86_64 2.0.35-26.el7 base 146 k libXpm x86_64 3.5.11-3.el7 base 54 k Transaction Summary ========================================================================================= Install 1 Package (+2 Dependent packages) Total download size: 325 k Installed size: 982 k Is this ok [y/d/N]: y Downloading packages: (1/3): gd-2.0.35-26.el7.x86_64.rpm | 146 kB 00:00:00 (2/3): libXpm-3.5.11-3.el7.x86_64.rpm | 54 kB 00:00:02 (3/3): vnstat-1.15-2.el7.x86_64.rpm | 125 kB 00:00:02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 143 kB/s | 325 kB 00:02 Running transaction check Running transaction test Transaction test succeeded Running transaction Installing : libXpm-3.5.11-3.el7.x86_64 1/3 Installing : gd-2.0.35-26.el7.x86_64 2/3 Installing : vnstat-1.15-2.el7.x86_64 3/3 Verifying : vnstat-1.15-2.el7.x86_64 1/3 Verifying : gd-2.0.35-26.el7.x86_64 2/3 Verifying : libXpm-3.5.11-3.el7.x86_64 3/3 Installed: vnstat.x86_64 0:1.15-2.el7 Dependency Installed: gd.x86_64 0:2.0.35-26.el7 libXpm.x86_64 0:3.5.11-3.el7 Complete! |
Step # 2: Enable vnstat
Once installed, you need to create a database with the following commands. The latest version uses config file, you need to edit it as follows:
$ sudo vi /etc/vnstat.conf
Make sure you setup correct interface name:
# default interface
Interface "wlp4s0" |
Save and close the file using vi/vim command. Once done start the vnstat server as follows:
$ sudo systemctl start vnstat
Step # 3 View statistics
Display default traffic statistics
$ vnstat
Display daily traffic statistics
$ vnstat -d
Display monthly traffic statistics:
$ vnstat -m
Display all time top10 traffic days:
$ vnstat -t
Try help option to get all query options:
$ vnstat --help
Sample outputs:
vnStat 1.15 by Teemu Toivola <tst at iki dot fi> -q, --query query database -h, --hours show hours -d, --days show days -m, --months show months -w, --weeks show weeks -t, --top10 show top 10 days -s, --short use short output -u, --update update database -i, --iface select interface (default: eth1) -?, --help short help -v, --version show version -tr, --traffic calculate traffic -ru, --rateunit swap configured rate unit -l, --live show transfer rate in real time |
Read man page of vnstat for complete options and more information and download vnstat here:
15 comment
was looking for something like this for ages…. it is better than mrtg and perfect for home ADSL user
Also check out bmon. It doesn’t exactly log your traffic to a file, but it does do live graphical/textual representation of it for monitoring. Great for CABLE/DSL boxes.
I recomment to look at the vnstat-php-frontend add on. it’s a php interface showing the stats gathered by vnstat.
http://www.sqweek.com/vnstat/
very nice tool, thanks 🙂
Just perfect so far! I haven’t accumulated a lot of stats yet but it seems to be working well!
It is also a real bonus that it operates in the ‘background’, unobtrusive but efficient.
Thanks for the effort and thanks for an excellent tool.
great article sir. thank you.
This tool is really nice …It worked for me on my Ubuntu 8.10 distribution ,when coming to F10 its just didnt ….I’ve done the same config…Seems ” Not enough data available yet ” even after 3 days …
But this is amazing tool with very less config …………
Thanks for the Help
You need to instal cron job and needs some traffic to get data.
very useful think
thanks alot
Nice tool and a very useful blog!
Thanx!
@vinnie: You have to add cronjob yourself on Ubuntu 8.10.
any way to whitelist certain destinatons?
australian ISPs enforce a monthly bandwidth quota on consumers. Most good australians ISP also provide larges amounts of locally mirrored data that don’t count towards that monthly quota.
I’d like to white list some IP addresses in order to obtain a report relevant to usage affecting the monthly quota my isp provides me.
Not possible as vnstat reads raw kernel counters and stores them in /var/lib/vnstat/eth0. Try contacting its author and see if he can come with some solution.
HTH
Yeah! I saw other code at above are good, but I want to see script for manage over user in the company and conditions to user
Thanks, very useful tool.
P.S. On Fedora 14 you need uncomment line in /etc/cron.d/vnstat
Thanks for the guide. I know it’s a long time after but the install or db creation did not seem to add a cron anywhere. Lucky you included it in your article. I’m going to checkout the frontend posted by Erik: http://www.sqweek.com/sqweek/index.php?p=1