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Network Monitoring

Network monitoring is the process of continuously monitoring a computer network for slow or failing components and notifying the network administrator in case of outages or other trouble.

Real-time Traffic Monitoring​

  • iftop: Displays bandwidth usage on an interface by host.

    sudo iftop -i eth0

  • nload: A command-line tool that allows users to monitor network traffic and bandwidth usage in real time.

    nload

  • vnstat: A console-based network traffic monitor that uses the network interface statistics provided by the kernel as information source.

    # Monitor traffic on the eth0 interface
    vnstat -l -i eth0

Syslog and SNMP​

  • Syslog: Syslog is a standard for message logging. It allows separation of the software that generates messages, the system that stores them, and the software that reports and analyzes them. Many network devices can be configured to send syslog messages to a central syslog server.
  • SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): SNMP is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behavior. It is widely used for monitoring network devices, such as routers, switches, and servers.