Bash command (netstat etc) to show overview of packet transfer?

Question

Let's say I have a Linux machine that is being bogged down by some network traffic. Might be someone FTPing a large file to it, a bunch of people downloading a large file, etc.

What are some options I could use to determine this? I've looked over say the netstat man but I'm not sure if this would be exactly what I need. It could at least tell me the ports so I could tell if it's FTP or not, but wouldn't help if say a file was being DLed.

Answer 1

You have several options here depending on what it is exactly that you're trying to measure. I'm guessing it's simply network traffic in bytes:

tcpdump

tcptrace

Install netglance.

Answer 2

• iftop
• iptraf

Answer 3

You could poke around /proc/net or take a look at wireshark.