1IFSTAT(1) System Utilities IFSTAT(1)
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6 ifstat - Report InterFace STATistics
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9 ifstat [-a] [-l] [-z] [-n] [-v] [-h] [-t] [-i if0,if1,...] [-d
10 drv[:opt]] [-s [comm@][#]host[/nn]] [-T] [-A] [-w] [-W] [-S] [-b] [-q]
11 [delay[/delay] [count]]
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14 Ifstat is a little tool to report interface activity, just like
15 iostat/vmstat do for other system statistics.
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18 ifstat accepts the following options:
19 -l Enables monitoring of loopback interfaces for which statistics are
21 available. By default, ifstat monitors all non-loopback interfaces
22 that are up.
23 -a Enables monitoring of all interfaces found for which statistics are
25 available.
26 -z Hides interface which counters are null, eg interfaces that are up
28 but not used.
29 -i Specifies the list of interfaces to monitor, separated by commas
31 (if an interface name has a comma, it can be escaped with '\').
32 Multiple instances of the options are added together.
33 -s Equivalent to -d snmp:[comm@][#]host[/nn]] to poll a remote host
35 through SNMP. See below for details.
36 -h Displays a short help message.
38 -n Turns off displaying the header periodically.
40 -t Adds a timestamp at the beginning of each line.
42 -T Reports total bandwith for all monitored interfaces.
44 -A Disables use of interface indexes: by default, when polling mecha‐
46 nism is index based (snmp, ifmib), ifstat remembers indexes of mon‐
47 itored interfaces to poll only them. However, if interfaces indexes
48 change often (new interfaces added, etc), you might loose some
49 stats, hence this flag. Note that if you ask ifstat to monitor a
50 non existent interface, it will poll all interfaces until it finds
51 the requested one (regardless of this flag) so you can poll for an
52 interface that goes up and down.
53 -w Uses fixed width columns, instead of enlarging them if needed for
55 interfaces names to fit.
56 -W Wrap lines that are larger than the terminal width (implies -w).
58 Wrapped lines are prefixed with a cycling letter to ease reading.
59 -S Keep stats updated on the same line if possible (no scrolling nor
61 wrapping).
62 -b Reports bandwith in kbits/sec instead of kbytes/sec.
64 -q Quiet mode, warnings are not printed.
66 -v Displays version and the compiled-in drivers.
68 -d Specifies a driver to use to gather stats and an eventual option
70 for this driver separated of the driver name by a colon. If this is
71 not specified, ifstat uses the first driver compiled in, with no
72 options.
73 The following drivers are available (depending on the operating
75 system and compile-time options, not all of them might be present):
76 proc
78 This driver gets statistics from Linux's /proc/net/dev file. An
79 alternate file name to get stats from can be passed as the
80 option.
81 ifmib
83 This driver gets statistics from FreeBSD's ifmib sysctl. It
84 doesn't accept any options.
85 kstat
87 This driver gets statistics from Solaris kstat interface. It
88 doesn't accept any options.
89 ifdata
91 This driver gets statistics using SIOCGIFDATA ioctl under IRIX
92 and OpenBSD (different semantics). It doesn't accept any
93 options.
94 route
96 This driver gets statistics using routing sysctl on BSD based
97 systems. It doesn't accept any options.
98 kvm This driver gets statistics by reading the kernel live struc‐
100 tures. It accepts an option specifying which files/devices to
101 use in the following format : [execfile][,[corefile][,swap‐
102 file]] (see kvm_open(3) for details on those fields). If a null
103 string is passed for a parameter, the system default will be
104 used for it.
105 Note that for this driver to work, ifstat needs to have read
107 access to the system memory device. This is usually done by
108 running it as root, or by installing setgid mem or kmem. ifstat
109 will NOT install setgid by default; It is up to you to decide
110 if you trust it.
111 dlpi
113 This driver gets statistics using the DLPI streams interface
114 available on HP-UX. An alternate device to query statistics
115 from can be passed as the option (default is /dev/dlpi).
116 win32
118 This driver gets statistics using the GetIfTable interface
119 available on Win32 systems. It doesn't accept any options.
120 snmp
122 This driver gets statistics through SNMP. The option, in the
123 form [comm@][#]host[/nn]], specifies the host and eventual com‐
124 munity to poll. Default community is public, but can be changed
125 by prepending "comm@" to the hostname. If host starts by a #,
126 interface names are generated from their index as `ifNN' (this
127 is a workaround for some equipments that give all interfaces
128 the same description). Default host is localhost, and this will
129 be used by default if snmp is the only available driver.
130 The driver will try to poll several interfaces at once by
132 grouping requests in SNMP packets. By default interfaces will
133 be polled by group of 8. If this doesn't work well with your
134 equipments, you can lower that number by suffixing the hostname
135 with /nn, where nn is the number of interfaces to poll at once.
136 You can also increase the number if you want to poll a large
137 number of interfaces efficiently and if your server supports
138 it.
139 delay
141 delay is the delay between updates in seconds, which defaults to 1.
142 A decimal number can be specified for intervals shorter than a sec‐
143 ond. (minimum 0.1)
144 A second delay can also be specified (separated from the first one
146 by a '/'). In that case the first delay will be used for the first
147 poll after start and the second one will be used for all following
148 polls (This can be used to have a "fast" start when running for a
149 long while with a big delay).
150 count
152 count is the number of updates before stopping. If not specified,
153 it is unlimited.
154
156 vmstat(1), iostat(1)
157
159 Gaël Roualland, <gael.roualland@dial.oleane.com>
160ifstat 1.1 2003-11-22 IFSTAT(1)