Network traffic analyzers for Ubuntu System

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Darkstat is a network statistics gatherer.Effectively, it's a packet sniffer which runs as a background process on a cable/DSL router, gathers all sorts of useless but interesting statistics,and serves them over HTTP.

Install Darkstat in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install darkstat

This will complete the installation.Once you finish the installation you need to edit the the file located at /etc/darkstat/init.cfg

sudo gedit /etc/darkstat/init.cfg

# Turn this to yes when you have configured the options below.

START_DARKSTAT=no

to

START_DARKSTAT=yes

Now you need to start the darkstat using the following command

sudo /etc/init.d/darkstat start

This will start the darkstat process

Now if you want to see your network stats go to http://youripaddress:666

Darkstat Screenshots

Here you can see some of the screenshots for darkstat

Once you open the http://youripaddress:666 you should see the following screen

Hosts Screen

Hosts screen you can see all the machines which take part in the communication. These can be arranged by the caused traffic or their particular IP address.

Ports Screen

Ports Screen you can see the port numbers which are used by server and client applications. You can immediately recognize the port numbers which are used by the following daemons: 666 (darkstat), 80 (http)

Protocols Screen

Protocols Screen protocols ICMP,TCP,IGP and UDP for the file transmission, which were involved in the communication event.

Graphs Screen

Graphs Screen screen shot shows a summary of the collected time periods as graphs

This tool is really useful if you want to check your ubuntu system traffic details like incoming and outgoing ports and communication to outside world

There are other tools which you can use as follows

Wireshark (Old Name Ethereal)

Wireshark® is used by network professionals around the world for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education. It has all of the standard features you would expect in a protocol analyzer, and several features not seen in any other product. Its open source license allows talented experts in the networking community to add enhancements. It runs on all popular computing platforms, including Unix, Linux, and Windows.

If you want to install wireshark in ubuntu use the following command

For Ubuntu Edgy users

sudo apt-get install Wireshark

For Ubuntu Dapper Users

sudo apt-get install ethereal

If you want to open go to Applications--->Internet--->Wireshark (If you want run as root select root option)

Once it opens you should see the following screen

If you want to see the available interfaces for capture click on the icon bottom of the file tool option

Capture Network Interface eth0 details

Wireshark Version Details

Etherape

EtherApe is a graphical network monitor for Unix modeled after etherman. Featuring link layer, ip and TCP modes, it displays network activity graphically. Hosts and links change in size with traffic. Color coded protocols display.
It supports Ethernet, FDDI, Token Ring, ISDN, PPP and SLIP devices. It can filter traffic to be shown, and can read traffic from a file as well as live from the network.

If you want to install Etherape in ubuntu use the following command

sudo apt-get install etherape

If you want to open go to Applications--->Internet--->EtherApe(as root)

Once it open the application you can see the network activity with all the protocols and locations

Ethstatus

Console-based ethernet statistics monitor.Ethstatus is a console-based monitoring utility for displaying statistical data of the ethernet interface on a quantity basis. It is similar to iptraf but is meant to run as a permanent console task to monitor the network load.

Install Ethstatus in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install ethstatus

If you want to see your your network card status from command line just enter the following command

ethstatus

you should see the following screen with all the details

potion

IP Flow Monitor.This is a console utility which will listen on an interface using libpcap, aggregate the traffic into flows and display the top (as many as can fit on your screen) flows with their average throughput. A flow is identified ip protocol, source ip, source port, destination ip, destination port, and type of service flag.

Install potion in ubuntu

sudo apt-get install potion

This will complete the installation

potion Usage

potion [options] interface [expression]

Example

potion -a eth0 1

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