vnStat is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

network utility This is a list of built-in apps and system components developed by Apple Inc. for macOS that come bundled by default or are installed through a system update. Many of the default programs found on macOS have counterparts on Apple's other opera ...

for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

. It uses a

command line interface A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user-friendly alternati ...

. vnStat command is a console-based network traffic monitor. It keeps a log of hourly, daily and monthly network traffic for the selected interface(s) but is not a

packet sniffer A packet analyzer (also packet sniffer or network analyzer) is a computer program or computer hardware such as a packet capture appliance that can Traffic analysis, analyze and Logging (computing), log traffic that passes over a computer netwo ...

. The traffic information is analyzed from interfaces statistics provided by the

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

. That way vnStat can be used even without root permissions.

History

vnStat is a console-based network traffic monitor that uses the network interface statistics provided by the kernel as information source. This means that vnStat won't actually be sniffing any traffic and also ensures light use of system resources. vnStat had an Initial public release in 23-Sep-2002 (version 1.0) by Teemu Toivola. On 8 March 2004 its webpage moved to https://humdi.net/vnstat/ and a

man page A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation found on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Topics covered include programs, system libraries, system calls, and sometimes local system details. The local host administr ...

was included. On 4 November 2006 was included in

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

for Testing Watch and on 17 November 2006 was removed and next day was accepted 1.4-4 version. On 20 February 2010 was accepted 1.10-0.1 version in

. Nowadays

keeps a full history about vnstat by using a

Rich Site Summary RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many d ...

. On 25 October 2010 was included in the

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

ports tree. On 26 April 2012 was included in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin On 16 February 2017 a 1.17 version was released.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://humdi.net/vnstat/
Official repository
Linux network-related software Free software programmed in C Console applications Free network management software System monitors