NAME¶

bmon - bandwidth monitor and rate estimator

SYNOPSIS¶

bmon [--show-all] [--use-si] [--input=MODULE] [--output=MODULE] [OPTIONS...]

DESCRIPTION¶

bmon is a monitoring and debugging tool to capture networking related statistics and prepare them visually in a human friendly way. It features various output methods including an interactive curses user interface and a programmable text output for scripting.

OPTIONS¶

-h, --help

-V, --version

-i, --input=MODULE[:OPTIONS][,MODULE...]

-o, --output=MODULE[:OPTIONS][,MODULE...]

-U, --use-si

-f, --configfile=FILE

-p, --policy=POLICY

-a, --show-all

-r, --read-interval=FLOAT

-R, --rate-interval=FLOAT

-b, --use-bit

-L, --lifetime=FLOAT

INPUT MODULES¶

Input modules provide statistical data about elements. Each element consists of attributes which represent a counter, a rate, or a percentage. Elements may carry additional child elements to represent a hierarchy. Each element is assigned to a group defined by the input module. Input modules are polled in the frequency of the configured read interval.

The following input modules are available:

netlink

Uses the Netlink protocol to collect interface and traffic control statistics from the kernel. This is the default input module.

proc

Reads interface statistics from the /proc/net/dev file. This is considered a legacy interface and provided for backwards compatibility reasons. This is a fallback module if the Netlink interface is not available.

dummy

Programmable input module for debugging and testing purposes.

null

No data collected.

To receive additional information about a module, run the module with the "help" option set like this:

See MODULE CONFIGURATION for more details.

OUTPUT MODULES¶

Output modules display or export the statistical data collected by input modules. Multiple output modules can be run at the same time. bmon will not prevent possible conflicts such as multiple output modules writing to the console.

The following output modules exist:

curses

Interactive curses based text user interface providing real time rate estimations and a graphical representation of each attribute. Press '?' to display the quick reference guide. Additional interface information (including IPv4/IPv6 addresses when using the netlink input) can be toggled with 'i'; use '4' and '6' to show or hide IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. This is the default output mode.

ascii

Simple programmable text output intended for human consumption. Capable of printing list of interfaces, detailed counters and graphs to the console. This is the default fallback output mode if curses is not available.

format

Fully scriptable output mode intended for consumption by other programs. See the module help text for additional information.

json

JSON output mode intended for consumption by other programs. Prints one JSON object per update with a Unix timestamp plus groups, elements, and attribute totals and rates. See the module help text for additional information.

null

Disable output.

To receive additional information about a module, run the module with the "help" option set like this:

See MODULE CONFIGURATION for more details.

MODULE CONFIGURATION¶

The syntax to configure modules is as follows:

Run the module with option "help" to receive the list of options for each module:

INTERFACE SELECTION¶

The following syntax is used to define the interface selection policy:

The interface name may contain the character '*' which will act as a wildcard and represents any number of any character type, e.g. eth*, h*0, ...

Examples:

EXAMPLES¶

To run bmon in curses mode monitoring the interfaces eth0 and eth1:

To start curses with the additional info panel and IPv6 addresses hidden:

To run bmon in format mode, monitoring any eth* interfaces, with a specified format string:

To run bmon in JSON mode for a single sample on eth0:

FILES¶

/etc/bmon.conf
$HOME/.bmonrc

SEE ALSO¶

ip(8), netstat(8), ifconfig(8), netlink(7),

AUTHOR¶

Thomas Graf <tgraf@suug.ch> among others