bmon is a terminal-based bandwidth monitoring and debugging utility that displays network interface statistics in real time. It provides an interactive view of network traffic, helping users identify bandwidth utilisation, transmission problems and unusual activity.
The application collects statistics from operating system interfaces and presents them through live graphs and numerical counters. Its curses interface makes it possible to inspect traffic without running a desktop environment or graphical monitoring application.
bmon is particularly useful for system administrators, network engineers and Linux users who need immediate feedback about network performance. It also provides structured output suitable for integration with scripts and other monitoring tools.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Real-time monitoring of incoming and outgoing network bandwidth.
- Interactive curses interface with graphical traffic representations, including Braille-based graphs.
- Displays received and transmitted bytes, packets and interface error counters.
- Monitors multiple network interfaces, including Ethernet, wireless and virtual interfaces.
- Configurable interface selection using names, wildcards and exclusion filters.
- Displays IPv4 and IPv6 addresses alongside additional interface information.
- Supports Linux Netlink statistics, including traffic control information and ingress/egress filtering.
- Configurable sampling intervals and rate calculation periods.
- Choose between bits and bytes per second, with SI unit support.
- Multiple output modes, including interactive curses, ASCII, programmable formatted text and JSON.
- JSON output includes timestamps, interface attributes, traffic totals and calculated rates.
- Customisable display colours and interface layouts.
- Configurable traffic history intervals and monitoring parameters.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
Website: github.com/Jafaral/bmon
Support:
Developer: Thomas Graf and contributors
License: BSD 2-Clause ‘Simplified’ License and MIT License
bmon is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Network 'top' Tools | |
|---|---|
| ntopng | Web-based network traffic monitoring application with an open source version |
| NetHogs | Groups bandwidth by process |
| nload | Real time network traffic monitor for the text console |
| IPTraf-ng | Fork of IPTraf |
| iftop | Displays bandwidth usage on an interface by host |
| ntop | Network traffic probe that shows the network usage |
| IPTraf | Interactive Colourful IP LAN Monitor |
| socktop | Remote system monitor with a rich TUI |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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