Linux and Unix nload App: Monitor Network Traffic and Bandwidth Usage In Real Time

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if you want to monitor network throughput on the command line interface, use nload application. It is a console application which monitors network traffic and bandwidth usage in real time. It visualizes the in and outgoing traffic using two graphs and provides additional info like total amount of transferred data and min/max network usage.

 

Install nload on a CentOS/RHEL/Red Hat/Fedora Linux 

First, turn on EPEL repo on a CentOS or RHEL based system. Type the following yum command to install nload:

yum -y install nload

Install nload on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux

Type the following apt-get command :

sudo apt-get install nload

Install nload on a FreeBSD system

To install the nload via port, type:

cd /usr/ports/net/nload/ && make install clean

Or add the package

pkg install net/nload

Install nload on a OpenBSD system

Type the following command:

sudo pkg_add -i nload

How do I use nload to display the current network usage?

The basic syntax is:

nload
nload device
nload [options] device1 device2

Just type the following command:

nload
nload eth0
nload em0 em2

Controlling nload app

Once nload command executed, it begins to monitor the network devices. You can control nload with the following key shortcuts:

  1. You can switch between the devices by pressing the left and right arrow keys orEnter/Tab key.
  2. Press F2 to show the option window
  3. Press F5 to save current settings to the user’s config file.
  4. Press F6 reload settings from the config files.
  5. Press q or hit Ctrl+C to quit nload.

Setting the refresh interval of the display

The default value of interval is 100 milliseconds to refresh interval of the display. In this example, change to 500 milliseconds:

nload -t {interval_number_in_millisec}
nload -t 500