IFSTAT(1)		       System Utilities			     IFSTAT(1)



NAME
       ifstat - Report InterFace STATistics

SYNOPSIS
       ifstat [-a] [-l] [-z] [-n] [-v] [-h] [-t] [-i if0,if1,...] [-d
       drv[:opt]] [-s [comm@][#]host[/nn]] [-T] [-A] [-w] [-W] [-S] [-b] [-q]
       [delay[/delay] [count]]

DESCRIPTION
       Ifstat is a little tool to report interface activity, just like
       iostat/vmstat do for other system statistics.

OPTIONS
       ifstat accepts the following options:

       -l  Enables monitoring of loopback interfaces for which statistics are
	   available. By default, ifstat monitors all non-loopback interfaces
	   that are up.

       -a  Enables monitoring of all interfaces found for which statistics are
	   available.

       -z  Hides interface which counters are null, eg interfaces that are up
	   but not used.

       -i  Specifies the list of interfaces to monitor, separated by commas
	   (if an interface name has a comma, it can be escaped with '\').
	   Multiple instances of the options are added together.

       -s  Equivalent to -d snmp:[comm@][#]host[/nn]] to poll a remote host
	   through SNMP. See below for details.

       -h  Displays a short help message.

       -n  Turns off displaying the header periodically.

       -t  Adds a timestamp at the beginning of each line.

       -T  Reports total bandwith for all monitored interfaces.

       -A  Disables use of interface indexes: by default, when polling mecha-
	   nism is index based (snmp, ifmib), ifstat remembers indexes of mon-
	   itored interfaces to poll only them. However, if interfaces indexes
	   change often (new interfaces added, etc), you might loose some
	   stats, hence this flag. Note that if you ask ifstat to monitor a
	   non existent interface, it will poll all interfaces until it finds
	   the requested one (regardless of this flag) so you can poll for an
	   interface that goes up and down.

       -w  Uses fixed width columns, instead of enlarging them if needed for
	   interfaces names to fit.

       -W  Wrap lines that are larger than the terminal width (implies -w).
	   Wrapped lines are prefixed with a cycling letter to ease reading.

       -S  Keep stats updated on the same line if possible (no scrolling nor
	   wrapping).

       -b  Reports bandwith in kbits/sec instead of kbytes/sec.

       -q  Quiet mode, warnings are not printed.

       -v  Displays version and the compiled-in drivers.

       -d  Specifies a driver to use to gather stats and an eventual option
	   for this driver separated of the driver name by a colon. If this is
	   not specified, ifstat uses the first driver compiled in, with no
	   options.

	   The following drivers are available (depending on the operating
	   system and compile-time options, not all of them might be present):

	   proc
	       This driver gets statistics from Linux's /proc/net/dev file. An
	       alternate file name to get stats from can be passed as the
	       option.

	   ifmib
	       This driver gets statistics from FreeBSD's ifmib sysctl. It
	       doesn't accept any options.

	   kstat
	       This driver gets statistics from Solaris kstat interface. It
	       doesn't accept any options.

	   ifdata
	       This driver gets statistics using SIOCGIFDATA ioctl under IRIX
	       and OpenBSD (different semantics). It doesn't accept any
	       options.

	   route
	       This driver gets statistics using routing sysctl on BSD based
	       systems. It doesn't accept any options.

	   kvm This driver gets statistics by reading the kernel live struc-
	       tures. It accepts an option specifying which files/devices to
	       use in the following format : [execfile][,[corefile][,swap-
	       file]] (see kvm_open(3) for details on those fields). If a null
	       string is passed for a parameter, the system default will be
	       used for it.

	       Note that for this driver to work, ifstat needs to have read
	       access to the system memory device. This is usually done by
	       running it as root, or by installing setgid mem or kmem. ifstat
	       will NOT install setgid by default; It is up to you to decide
	       if you trust it.

	   dlpi
	       This driver gets statistics using the DLPI streams interface
	       available on HP-UX. An alternate device to query statistics
	       from can be passed as the option (default is /dev/dlpi).

	   win32
	       This driver gets statistics using the GetIfTable interface
	       available on Win32 systems. It doesn't accept any options.

	   snmp
	       This driver gets statistics through SNMP. The option, in the
	       form [comm@][#]host[/nn]], specifies the host and eventual com-
	       munity to poll. Default community is public, but can be changed
	       by prepending "comm@" to the hostname. If host starts by a #,
	       interface names are generated from their index as `ifNN' (this
	       is a workaround for some equipments that give all interfaces
	       the same description). Default host is localhost, and this will
	       be used by default if snmp is the only available driver.

	       The driver will try to poll several interfaces at once by
	       grouping requests in SNMP packets. By default interfaces will
	       be polled by group of 8. If this doesn't work well with your
	       equipments, you can lower that number by suffixing the hostname
	       with /nn, where nn is the number of interfaces to poll at once.
	       You can also increase the number if you want to poll a large
	       number of interfaces efficiently and if your server supports
	       it.

       delay
	   delay is the delay between updates in seconds, which defaults to 1.
	   A decimal number can be specified for intervals shorter than a sec-
	   ond. (minimum 0.1)

	   A second delay can also be specified (separated from the first one
	   by a '/'). In that case the first delay will be used for the first
	   poll after start and the second one will be used for all following
	   polls (This can be used to have a "fast" start when running for a
	   long while with a big delay).

       count
	   count is the number of updates before stopping. If not specified,
	   it is unlimited.

SEE ALSO
       vmstat(1), iostat(1)

AUTHOR
       Gael Roualland, <gael.roualland@dial.oleane.com>



ifstat 1.1			  2003-11-22			     IFSTAT(1)