Interested in how much bandwidth you are using? vnStat is a simple command line utility to track network traffic on a Linux computer. vnStat is easy to set up and use on Ubuntu, and works well on both server and desktop systems.
Run these three commands to install vnStat and set up permissions so every user can run it:
sudo apt-get install vnstat sudo chmod o+x /usr/bin/vnstat sudo chmod o+wx /var/lib/vnstat/
You need to find the name of the network interface you want to monitor. Most of the time it will be called eth0, run
ifconfig
to check if you are not sure. Then run this command, replacing eth0 with the name of your network interface:
vnstat -u -i eth0
That command creates a cron job (scheduled task) that will run every few minutes and collect traffic data for vnStat.
Check the collected data by running vnstat on a command line. It will bring up the daily usage information:
Database updated: Thu Aug 30 13:40:01 2007
eth0
received: 90.65 MB (11.9%)
transmitted: 666.12 MB (88.1%)
total: 756.77 MB
rx | tx | total
-----------------------+------------+-----------
yesterday 49.94 MB | 378.44 MB | 428.38 MB
today 17.27 MB | 125.30 MB | 142.57 MB
-----------------------+------------+-----------
estimated 29 MB | 218 MB | 247 MB
Run vnstat -h to see an hourly graph:
eth0 13:40 ^ t | t | t | t | t t t | t t t t t t t t t | t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t | t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t | t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t | rt t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t -+---------------------------------------------------------------------------> | 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 h rx (kB) tx (kB) h rx (kB) tx (kB) h rx (kB) tx (kB) 14 2543 21517 22 1286 9950 06 1304 9431 15 1628 11561 23 1406 9223 07 1147 8576 16 1770 12431 00 999 7849 08 1775 12656 17 1388 9518 01 673 5071 09 1485 11738 18 1870 13693 02 932 6089 10 1063 7514 19 1392 9417 03 882 7620 11 1530 11656 20 1522 10194 04 1024 7629 12 2118 14688 21 1838 11744 05 1429 9662 13 1330 8130
vnStat has many more options as well. Run
vnstat –help
to more ways to look at the data. Also check out the screenshots section of the vnStat website for examples.
Start and test vnstat:
Note which interfaces are active on your PC.
vnstat -u -i eth0 vnstat -u -i eth1
Now you can generate text reports of your monthly bandwidth usage. I use eth1 in the following examples, but you may be using eth0 or both eth0 and eth1.
Daily bandwidth report.
vnstat -i eth1 -d
Hourly bandwidth report.
vnstat -i eth1 -h
Monthly bandwidth report.
vnstat -i eth1 -m
Real time speed report.
vnstat -i eth1 -l
