How to install iftop on Unix/Linux server?

The command “iftop” is using for bandwidth (BW) monitoring on a server. It is simple to monitor a server BW with iftop command.

You can analyse the incoming and outgoing packets using iftop tool. This is very useful to analyse network outages or some kind of network level attacks. In this article, I am sharing the steps to install this tool on your Linux box.

How to install iftop on my server?

Ya.. Its really simple to install iftop on your Unix/Linux server. The following steps will help you to install iftop.

ssh to your server---->

[root@server]# wget http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/download/iftop-0.17.tar.gz
[root@server]# tar -zxvf iftop-0.17.tar.gz
[root@server]# cd iftop-0.17
[root@server]# ./configure

For a fresh server you may get an error like this 🙁 don’t worry about that,

...................
...................
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... no
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH

That means server needs gcc for compilation

[root@server]# yum install gcc

Again run this

[root@server]# ./configure
................
................
checking how to call gethostbyaddr_r... 8 args, int return
checking gethostbyaddr_r usability... yes
checking where to find pcap.h... no idea
configure: error: can't find pcap.h
You're not going to get very far without libpcap.

[root@server]# yum -y install libpcap libpcap-devel

[root@server]# ./configure
................
................
checking pcap.h presence... yes
checking for pcap.h... yes
checking for a curses library containing mvchgat... none found
configure: error: Curses! Foiled again!
(Can't find a curses library supporting mvchgat.)
Consider installing ncurses.

[root@server]# yum -y install ncurses ncurses-devel
[root@server]# ./configure
[root@server]# make
[root@server]# make install

That’s it.. These are the simple steps to install iftop on your server.

Related topics:

Bandwidth monitoring on linux server with iftop command

What is a Linux container?

Basic: Containerisation helps to isolate processes. You can run your App/Services as an isolated process, running from a distinct image that provides all files necessary to support the processes.

Basically Linux containers are OS level virtualisation technique for running multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a control host using a single Linux kernel.