netbars

Netbars is a Python web server that watches network traffic on a local interface. It serves an animated HTML/Javascript widget. The height of the bar is set to your max bandwidth, and the display shows what fraction of your bandwidth is talking to what remote addresses.

It also comes with an easy way to feed the bandwidth usage stats to a graphite sever, so you can make charts like this:

Download

version 2.0 - released 2016-01-30 - use SSE to stream updates to browser

version 1.0 - released 2011-03-04

View the darcs repository (or pull from here)

Usage

I haven't put cmdline args in yet. Edit netbars/traffic.py with your local ip address and interface name. Edit scripts/netbars with the server port you want. Edit netbars/bars.html with your maxBytesPerSec and a title other than 'DSL traffic'. Run netbars. View it at http://localhost:3001/. Then embed it on your dashboard page:

    #netbars {
      background: #555555;
      width:247px;
      height:230px;
      overflow:hidden;
    }

    <iframe src="http://localhost:3001/" id="netbars"></iframe>

If you run graphite (recommended!), you might like to included netbars2graphite daemon, which fetches the in/out totals and sends them to graphite every 2 seconds. Graphite serves regular images, so it's easy to include pretty history graphs in your dashboard, too.

Plan

Add cmdline args for stuff.
Make it work as an OSX widget.
Get the ratio of in/out bytes; change color or something
Smooth the animation so the updates aren't so distracting
Somehow show the difference between broken and unchanging-data
Return everything with ip, augment with hostnames once they are available

etherape - instantaneous display of very similar data, except it's a GUI app and it draws a more complex diagram
iftop - console tool that shows about the same data as mine
ntop - web UI, can return lots more detail, but doesn't have a compact representation suitable for putting in a bigger dashboard
netwatch - an older console tool (screenshots over here)

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2011 Drew Perttula

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

netbars

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Usage

Plan

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