How can I get the current network interface throughput statistics on Linux/UNIX? [closed]

Answer 1

I couldn't get the parse ifconfig script to work for me on an AMI so got this to work measuring received traffic averaged over 10 seconds

date && rxstart=`ifconfig eth0 | grep bytes | awk '{print $2}' | cut -d : -f 2` && sleep 10 && rxend=`ifconfig eth0 | grep bytes | awk '{print $2}' | cut -d : -f 2` && difference=`expr $rxend - $rxstart` && echo "Received `expr $difference / 10` bytes per sec"

Sorry, it's ever so cheap and nasty but it worked!

Answer 2

I like iptraf but you probably have to install it and it seems to not being maintained actively anymore.

Answer 3

I find dstat to be quite good. Has to be installed though. Gives you way more information than you need. Netstat will give you packet rates but not bandwith also. netstat -s

Answer 4

I wrote this dumb script a long time ago, it depends on nothing but Perl and Linux≥2.6:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use POSIX qw(strftime);
use Time::HiRes qw(gettimeofday usleep);

my $dev = @ARGV ? shift : 'eth0';
my $dir = "/sys/class/net/$dev/statistics";
my %stats = do {
    opendir +(my $dh), $dir;
    local @_ = readdir $dh;
    closedir $dh;
    map +($_, []), grep !/^\.\.?$/, @_;
};

if (-t STDOUT) {
    while (1) {
        print "\033[H\033[J", run();
        my ($time, $us) = gettimeofday();
        my ($sec, $min, $hour) = localtime $time;
        {
            local $| = 1;
            printf '%-31.31s: %02d:%02d:%02d.%06d%8s%8s%8s%8s',
            $dev, $hour, $min, $sec, $us, qw(1s 5s 15s 60s)
        }
        usleep($us ? 1000000 - $us : 1000000);
    }
}
else {print run()}

sub run {
    map {
        chomp (my ($stat) = slurp("$dir/$_"));
        my $line = sprintf '%-31.31s:%16.16s', $_, $stat;
        $line .= sprintf '%8.8s', int (($stat - $stats{$_}->[0]) / 1)
            if @{$stats{$_}} > 0;
        $line .= sprintf '%8.8s', int (($stat - $stats{$_}->[4]) / 5)
            if @{$stats{$_}} > 4;
        $line .= sprintf '%8.8s', int (($stat - $stats{$_}->[14]) / 15)
            if @{$stats{$_}} > 14;
        $line .= sprintf '%8.8s', int (($stat - $stats{$_}->[59]) / 60)
            if @{$stats{$_}} > 59;
        unshift @{$stats{$_}}, $stat;
        pop @{$stats{$_}} if @{$stats{$_}} > 60;
        "$line\n";
    } sort keys %stats;
}

sub slurp {
    local @ARGV = @_;
    local @_ = <>;
    @_;
}

It just reads from /sys/class/net/$dev/statistics every second, and prints out the current numbers and the average rate of change:

$ ./net_stats.pl eth0
rx_bytes                       :  74457040115259 4369093 4797875 4206554 364088
rx_packets                     :     91215713193   23120   23502   23234  17616
...
tx_bytes                       :  90798990376725 8117924 7047762 7472650 319330
tx_packets                     :     93139479736   23401   22953   23216  23171
...
eth0                           : 15:22:09.002216      1s      5s     15s     60s

                                ^ current reading  ^-------- averages ---------^

Answer 5

Besides iftop and iptraf, also check:

• bwm-ng (Bandwidth Monitor Next Generation)

and/or

• cbm (Color Bandwidth Meter)

ref: http://www.powercram.com/2010/01/bandwidth-monitoring-tools-for-ubuntu.html

Answer 6

You could parse /proc/net/dev.