1bmon(8) bmon bmon(8)
2
6 bmon - bandwidth monitor and rate estimator
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9 bmon [--show-all] [--use-si] [--input=MODULE] [--output=MODULE] [OP‐
10 TIONS...]
11
14 bmon is a monitoring and debugging tool to capture networking related
15 statistics and prepare them visually in a human friendly way. It fea‐
16 tures various output methods including an interactive curses user in‐
17 terface and a programmable text output for scripting.
18
21 -h, --help
22 Prints a short help text and exits.
23 -V, --version
25 Prints the versioning identifier and exits.
26 -i, --input=MODULE[:OPTIONS][,MODULE...]
28 Set list of input modules to load and use. Multiple modules can be
29 used in parallel. bmon automatically loads a useful and working in‐
30 put module by default. See INPUT MODULES for more details.
31 -o, --outputMODULE[:OPTIONS][,MODULE...]
33 Set list of output modules to load and use. Multiple modules can be
34 used in parallel. By default, bmon will use the curses output mode,
35 if that is not available due to an incompatible console it will
36 fall back to a simple text mode. See OUTPUT MODULES for more de‐
37 tails.
38 -U, --use-si
40 Use SI unit system (1KB = 1'000 bytes) instead of 1KB = 1'024
41 bytes.
42 -f, --configfile=FILE
44 Set alternative path to configuration file.
45 -p, --policy=POLICY
47 Set policy defining which network interfaces to display. See INTER‐
48 FACE SELECTION for more details.
49 -a, --show-all=
51 Display all interfaces, even interface that are administratively
52 down.
53 -r, --read-interval=FLOAT
55 Set interval in seconds in which input modules read statistics from
56 their source. The default is 1.0 seconds.
57 -R, --rate-interval=FLOAT
59 Set interval in seconds in which the rate per counter is calcu‐
60 lated. The default is 1.0 seconds.
61 -b, --use-bit
63 Show rates in bits per second instead of bytes per second.
64 -L, --lifetime=FLOAT
66 Set lifetime of an element in seconds before it is no longer dis‐
67 played without receiving any statistical updates. The default is 30
68 seconds.
69
72 Input modules provide statistical data about elements. Each element
73 consists of attributes which represents a counter, a rate, or a per‐
74 centage. Elements may carry additional child elements to represent a
75 hierarchy. Each element is assigned to a group defined by the input
76 module. Input modules are polled in the frequence of the configured
77 read interval.
78 The following input modules are available:
80 netlink
82 Uses the Netlink protocol to collect interface and traffic con‐
83 trol statistics from the kernel. This is the default input mod‐
84 ule.
85 proc Reads interface statistics from the /proc/net/dev file. This is
88 considered a legacy interface and provided for backwards compat‐
89 ibily reasons. This is a fallback module if the Netlink inter‐
90 face is not available.
91 dummy Programmable input module for debugging and testing purposes.
94 null No data collected.
97 To receive additional information about a module, run the module with
100 the "help" option set like this:
101 bmon -i netlink:help
104 See MODULE CONFIGURATION for more details.
106
109 Output modules display or export the statistical data collected by in‐
110 put modules. Multiple output modules can be run at the same time. bmon
111 will not prevent possible conflicts such as multiple output modules
112 writing to the console.
113 The following output modules exist:
115 curses Interactive curses based text user interface providing real time
118 rate estimations and a graphical representatio nof each attri‐
119 bute. Press '?' to display the quick reference guide. This is
120 the default output mode.
121 ascii Simple programmable text output intended for human consumption.
124 Capable of printing list of interfaces, detailed counters and
125 graphs to the console. This is the default fallback output mode
126 if curses is not available.
127 format Fully scriptable output mode inteded for consumption by other
130 programs. See the module help text for additional information.
131 null Disable output.
134 To receive additional information about a module, run the module with
137 the "help" option set like this:
138 bmon -o curses:help
141 See MODULE CONFIGURATION for more details.
143
146 The syntax to configure modules is as follows:
147 ARGUMENT ::= mod1[:OPTS][,mod2[:OPTS]...]
149 OPTS ::= OPTION[;OPTION...]
150 OPTION ::= option[=value]
151 Run the module with option "help" to receive the list of options for
154 each module:
155 bmon -i module:help
158
161 The following syntax is used to define the interface selection policy:
162 SELECTION ::= NAME[,NAME[,...]]
164 NAME ::= [!]interface
165 The interface name may contain the character '*' which will act as a
168 wildcard and represents any number of any character type, e.g. eth*,
169 h*0, ...
170 Examples:
173 lo,eth0,eth1
176 eth*,!eth0
177
180 To run bmon in curses mode monitoring the interfaces eth0 and eth1:
181 bmon -p eth0,eth1 -o curses
183 To run bmon in format mode, monitoring any eth* interfaces, with a
185 specified format string:
186 bmon -p 'eth*' -o format:fmt='$(element:name) $(attr:rxrate:pack‐
188 ets)\n'
189
191 /etc/bmon.conf
192 $HOME/.bmonrc
193
196 ip(8), netstat(8), ifconfig(8), netlink(7),
197
200 Thomas Graf <tgraf@suug.ch> among others
201Bandwidth Monitor bmon(8)