ntop (Monitor Network Traffic) installation/configuration on OpenSuSe

ntop is a network traffic probe that shows the network usage, similar to what the popular top Unix command does. ntop is based on libpcap and it has been written in a portable way in order to virtually run on every Unix platform and on Win32 as well.

ntop users can use a a web browser (e.g. Firefox) to navigate through ntop (that acts as a web server) traffic information and get a dump of the network status. In the latter case, ntop can be seen as a simple RMON-like agent with an embedded web interface. The use of:

    * a web interface
    * limited configuration and administration via the web interface
    * reduced CPU and memory usage (they vary according to network size and traffic)

make ntop easy to use and suitable for monitoring various kind of networks.

To run ntop you also require rrdtool, if not install, install it : # yast2 -i rrdtool rrdtool-devel

Installation: Use "1-click" installer to install ntop
OpenSuSe 11.1 - here
OpenSuSe 11.0 - here

Once the installation is successfully completed run ntop -A (as a root user) for the first time to set the password for the default ntop admin user (admin).

Now go to /etc/sysconfig/ntop config file and make the necessary changes like web interface (NTOPD_PORT="127.0.0.1:3000") and ethernet card (ip address) on which you want to monitor your network traffic like eth0, something like ....

After making all the necessary changes just restart the ntop server: # /etc/init.d/ntop restart and go to you web browser and point to: http://localhost:3000 to see network traffic flowing in and out of your network, something like ...