How to install iftop and use it on Linux Mint 18.3
To install iftop and use it on Linux Mint 18.3
Iftop command, which referes to Interface TOP, is a real time console-based network bandwidth monitoring tool that shows a quick overview of network activities on an interface. It displays a real time updated list of network usage bandwidth every 2, 10 and 40 seconds on average. It is really so simple to install iftop and use it on Linux Mint 18.3 and this tutorial covers the ground on the same process.
Installing iftop
First, before you begin with the actual installation, you are required to install a few library packages which are very essential for this process.
Linuxhelp ~ # apt install libpcap0.8 libpcap0.8-dev libncurses5 libncurses5-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libncurses5 is already the newest version (6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1).
libpcap0.8 is already the newest version (1.7.4-2).
The following additional packages will be installed:
libtinfo-dev
Suggested packages:
ncurses-doc
.
.
Setting up libtinfo-dev:amd64 (6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libncurses5-dev:amd64 (6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libpcap0.8-dev (1.7.4-2) ...
Once it is done, you need to download and install iftop. Iftop is available in the official software repositories of Debian/Ubuntu Linux, so you can install it using apt command but in this tutorial, we are installing it using source through wget utility in the following manner.
linuxhelp ~ # wget http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/download/iftop-0.17.tar.gz
--2018-03-06 00:34:53-- http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/download/iftop-0.17.tar.gz
Resolving www.ex-parrot.com (www.ex-parrot.com)... 93.93.130.166, 2a00:1098:0:82:1000:0:1:2
Connecting to www.ex-parrot.com (www.ex-parrot.com)|93.93.130.166|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 160381 (157K) [application/gzip]
Saving to: ‘ iftop-0.17.tar.gz’
iftop-0.17.tar.gz 100%[===================================================================> ] 156.62K --.-KB/s in 0.003s
2018-03-06 00:34:54 (44.0 MB/s) - ‘ iftop-0.17.tar.gz’ saved [160381/160381]
Now, extract the package by making use of the following command.
linuxhelp ~ # tar -zxvf iftop-0.17.tar.gz
iftop-0.17/
iftop-0.17/aclocal.m4
iftop-0.17/addr_hash.c
iftop-0.17/addr_hash.h
iftop-0.17/addrs_dlpi.c
iftop-0.17/addrs_ioctl.c
iftop-0.17/AUTHORS
iftop-0.17/bootstrap
iftop-0.17/cfgfile.c
iftop-0.17/cfgfile.h
.
.
iftop-0.17/ui.h
iftop-0.17/util.c
iftop-0.17/vector.c
iftop-0.17/vector.h
Once it is done, you need to navigate to the iftop folder and list all the files.
linuxhelp ~ # cd iftop-0.17/
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 #
inuxhelp iftop-0.17 # ls
aclocal.m4 cfgfile.c COPYING hash.c INSTALL NEWS resolver.c sorted_list.c TODO
addr_hash.c cfgfile.h dlcommon.c hash.h integers.h ns_hash.c resolver.h sorted_list.h token.h
addr_hash.h ChangeLog dlcommon.h iftop.8 ip.h ns_hash.h screenfilter.c stringmap.c ui.c
addrs_dlpi.c config edline.c iftop.c llc.h options.c screenfilter.h stringmap.h ui.h
addrs_ioctl.c config.h.in ether.h iftop.cat Makefile.am options.h serv_hash.c tcp.h util.c
AUTHORS configure ethertype.h iftop.h Makefile.in ppp.h serv_hash.h threadprof.c vector.c
bootstrap configure.in extract.h iftop.spec Makefile.OLD README sll.h threadprof.h vector.h
You shall now execute the configuration script.
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # ./configure
checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking target system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
.
.
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating config/Makefile
config.status: creating config.h
config.status: executing depfiles commands
You shall now install it by making use of the make command
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # make make all-recursive make[1]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' Making all in config make[2]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' make[2]: Nothing to be done for ' all' . make[2]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' . . make[2]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' make[1]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # make install Making install in config make[1]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' make[2]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' make[2]: Nothing to be done for ' install-exec-am' . make[2]: Nothing to be done for ' install-data-am' . make[2]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' make[1]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17/config' make[1]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' make[2]: Entering directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' /bin/bash ./config/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/sbin /usr/bin/install -c iftop /usr/local/sbin/iftop /bin/bash ./config/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/man/man8 mkdir -p -- /usr/local/man/man8 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./iftop.8 /usr/local/man/man8/iftop.8 make[2]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17' make[1]: Leaving directory ' /home/user/iftop-0.17'
Now that iftop has been installed, go to your console and run the iftop command without any arguments to view bandwidth usage of default interface,
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # iftop
interface: ens33
IP address is: 192.168.7.234
MAC address is: 00:0c:29:f8:f9:81
You can use iftop to monitor linux network Interface. For that, run the following ifconfig command or ip command to find all attached network interfaces on your Linux system.
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # ip addr show
1: lo: < LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: ens33: < BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:29:f8:f9:81 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.7.234/24 brd 192.168.7.255 scope global ens33
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::19ae:fc6a:5310:718b/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
Then use the -i flag to specify the interface you want to monitor
linuxhelp iftop-0.17 # iftop -i ens33
interface: ens33
IP address is: 192.168.7.234
MAC address is: 00:0c:29:f8:f9:81
With this, the tutorial on installation and usage of iftop comes to an end.
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