Linux Blog

Top like utility to monitor Network - sntop

Simple network top (sntop) is a curses-based console utility in the spirit of top that polls network hosts at a regular interval to determine their connectivity and displays the results in a pretty format. Advanced features are supported, such as automatic HTML generation of results, secure terminal mode, execution of an external file on connectivity changes, a daemon mode, and user/system configure files.

sntop uses fping (ping is supported, too) to determine connectivity of hosts, specified in a config file, on a regular interval. the results are displayed in a top-like format.

Installation and Configuration:
Download sntop from here and type the following command to install sntop

# tar xvzf sntop-x.y.z.tar.gz
# cd sntop-x.y.z
# ./configure
# make
# make install

you should now edit the system conf file (or remove it), which is by default in /etc:
$ vi /etc/sntoprc

Each user can use their own config file, look at the man pages to figure out how to add servers to the configuration file.
$ cp /etc/sntoprc ~/.sntoprc
$ vi ~/.sntoprc

sntop is placed in /usr/local/bin by default

Linux Announcement from Linus Torvalds .... 1991

This is always fun to read, even it it’s old news, Here’s the very first Linux announcement:

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and
I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

Disk Information Utility - di

di is a disk information utility, displaying everything that df does and more. It features the ability to display your disk usage in whatever format you desire/prefer/are used to. It is designed to be highly portable across many platforms.

di Displays usage information on mounted filesystems. Block values are reported in a human readable format. If the user or group has a disk quota, the values reported are adjusted according the quotas that apply to the user.
If file is specified, the usage information for the partition on which file is located is printed.

Installation:
Debian / Ubuntu Linux: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/di
OpenSUSE: http://packman.links2linux.org/package/di/

Gentoo lost and Fedora is losing to OpenSuSe

If Linux distributions were stocks and you an investor you wish you’d have invested in OpenSuSe at least according to Google Insights.

Get all the required Process Information and Statistics - Psinfo

Psinfo shows process information and statistics using the kernel /proc interface.
This information includes:
Process state, environment, arguments and flags
CPU usage
Scheduling
I/O usage
Virtual memory status
Pagefaults
Capabilities
Signals

psinfo is useful for providing a detailed view of the current state of an application when diagnosing issues or performance problems.

INSTALLATION
psinfo requires Linux kernel 2.6.0 or greater.
Download psinfo from here and compile and install it using following command:

# make
# make install

psinfo can be run as an orindary user but certain features (environment, executable, current working directory and root directory) require root rights and are marked n/a in output otherwise.