bwm-ng - Bandwidth Monitor NG (Next Generation), a live bandwidth monitor

bwm-ng [options] ... [configfile]"

bwm-ng can be used to monitor the current Bandwidth of all or some specific Interfaces. It shows total of in and out as well as total of all Interfaces. Several different output methods are supported (curses, plain, csv and html).

bwm-ng is not limited in the number of interfaces and can handle new ones dynamically while its running or hide those which are not up.

The used input methods pretty much depends on your OS and system. You can choose the prefered either at start or in curses during runtime. Each method can only be used if bwm-ng was compiled with support for it.

Currently supported are:

proc:

This is the default for Linux based systems. It parses the special procfs file /proc/net/dev. This should be used if in doubt in Linux.

getifaddrs:

This is the default on BSD systems like FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and recent Mac OS X (>=10.3). This should be used if in doubt on those systems. It uses the getifaddrs systemcall.

kstat:

This is the default for Solaris. It uses the kstat systemcall.

sysctl:

This is the default on Systems like IRIX and other UNIX. It can be used on many other systems like early Mac OS X as well. It uses the sysctl systemcall.

netstat:

This is a Backup for systems without the above, or other problems.

libstatgrab:

bwm-ng can use the external library libstatgrab to gather the data. please refer to http://www.i-scream.org/libstatgrab/ for more info about this.

You can select several different ways to output the data gathered by bwm-ng.

You can use one of:

curses:

This is the default output method. Usually this fits you the most. In curses mode you can control bwm-ng with severy keys. Press 'h' for a online help. To quit using this mode either press 'q' or ctrl-c.

plain:

Plain or ASCII is mostly a backup if curses is not available. You cannot control bwm-ng at all in this mode. To quit press ctrl-c. But for one single single output using this is the mode that fits the best.

csv:

CSV is designed to use with scripts for easy parsing. For a list of those elements please take a look at README - Specs section. To skip the first output with only zeros use

bwm-ng -o csv -c 0

html:

This is designed for use in the WWW. It uses the CSS file bwm-nd.css in current working dir. "--htmlrefresh" only affects the refresh of the page by the browser. For best results use the same value for --timeout and --htmlrefresh.

The options that are recognized by bwm-ng can be divided into 3 different groups. The long versions can only be used if bwm-ng was compiled with getopt_long.

INPUT

OUTPUT

OTHER

The behavior of bwm-ng can be also controlled by a configfile. By default bwm-ng first reads /etc/bwm-ng.conf and then ~/.bwm-ng.conf. If specified in commandline bwm-ng skips those. It consists of the same long-options as used for commandline as keys followed by a '=' and the value. Lines starting with a # or not known key will be ignored.

For example:

DYNAMIC=1
UNIT=bits
PROCFILE=/proc/dev/net
OUTPUT=plain

bwm-ng.css the CSS file used for html output.

bwm-ng.conf-example for an example of the configfile, README for other comments and hints about bwm-ng.

http://www.gropp.org/ for new version or further help and links.

Volker Gropp <bwmng@gropp.org> wrote bwm-ng and is current maintainer.

For further Authors please refer to AUTHORS file which should come with bwm-ng.