5 Great Commands to Monitor Network Bandwidth on Linux Server

Linux network traffic monitoring is one of the main parts of Linux troubleshooting. And can be done by many network monitoring utilities.

In this article we will discover 5 great console Linux commands to monitor network bandwidth for various scenarios.

IPTraf

IPTraf is one of my favorite Linux network bandwidth monitoring tool. It shows:

Total, IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, and non-IP byte counts
TCP source and destination addresses and ports
TCP packet and byte counts
TCP flag statuses
UDP source and destination information
ICMP type information
OSPF source and destination information
TCP and UDP service statistics
Interface packet counts
Interface IP checksum error counts
Interface activity indicators
LAN station statistics

If you have problem with using IPTraf please read article: IPTraf Doesn’t Show Interface in Ubuntu.

Install IPTraf on a CentOS / RHEL:

# yum install iptraf

Install IPTraf on a Ubuntu / Debian:

$ sudo apt-get install iptraf

$ sudo apt-get install iptraf-ng

Usage:

# yum iptraf

Speedometer

Speedometer network bandwidth monitor tool able graphically represent current network speed and can stored in a file.

Install Speedometer on Debian / Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install speedometer

Speedometer usage example (replace eth0 with your network interface name):

$ sudo speedometer -r eth0 -t eth0

iftop

iftop is a free software command-line system monitor tool that produces a frequently updated list of network connections. By default, the connections are ordered by bandwidth usage, with only the “top” bandwidth consumers shown.

iftop Install on CentOS/Red Hat:

# yum install iftop

iftop Install on Debian / Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install iftop

nload

nload is a console application which monitors network traffic and bandwidth usage in real time. It visualizes the in- and outgoing traffic using two graphs and provides additional info like the total amount of transferred data and min/max network usage. More information about nload usage – nload Linux man page.

Install nload on CentOS / RHEL:

# yum install epel-release
# yum install nload

Install nload on Debian / Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt install nload

nload usage example:

In this example output you see my eno2 network interface traffic.

$ nload eno2

ifstat

And finally very simple tool- ifstat. ifstat – Report InterFace STATistics.

Install ifstat on CentOS / RHEL

ifstat CentOS installation can be done from RPMForge repository – install RPMforge Repository.

# yum install ifstat

Install ifstat on Debian / Ubuntu

$ apt-get install ifstat