README
1Tcpstat v1.5
2------------
3
4LICENSE
5-------
6This software can be freely distributed under the terms of the "BSD
7License." See the "LICENSE" file distributed with this software for
8more information.
9
10
11INTRODUCTION
12------------
13tcpstat reports certain network interface statistics much like vmstat(8)
14does for system statistics. tcpstat gets its information by either
15monitoring a specific interface, or by reading previously saved tcpdump(1)
16data from a file.
17
18Because this program has a lot more to with network info than just TCP
19stuff, the "tcp" in tcpstat should really be "net", but someone already
20got dibbs on the name "netstat" a long, long time ago. Rats! :)
21
22
23TESTED PLATFORMS
24----------------
25 -- BSD
26 * FreeBSD 3.x, 4.x, 5.0
27 * NetBSD 1.5
28 * OpenBSD 2.7
29 * BSD/OS 3.0, 4.0
30 * Mac OS X 10.1
31 -- Compaq/Digital
32 * Tru64 Unix 4.0 (*)
33 * Tru64 Unix 5.1 (*)
34 -- HP
35 * HPUX 11.0
36 -- IBM
37 * AIX 4.3
38 -- Linux
39 * Debian 2.2
40 * Mandrake 7.2, 8.0
41 * RedHat 6.0, 6.2, 7.0, 7.2
42 * Slackware 7.0, 8.0
43 * SuSE 6.4, 7.0
44 * TurboLinux IA64 000828 (*)
45 -- Sun
46 * Solaris 2.5, 2.6, 7, 8
47
48If your OS is not listed, email me <pherman@frenchfries.net> and tell me
49how it went. I'd like to port this to as many unix platforms as possible.
50
51(*) Thanks to Compaq's testdrive program.
52
53INSTALLATION
54------------
55If you have compiled and installed any software from source before, you
56should know the routine by now:
57
58 1) Unpack the archive
59 2) cd tcpstat-1.5 (or whatever the directory name is)
60 3) ./configure
61 4) make
62 5) make install (as root, if necessary)
63
64tcpstat *does* require the pcap library, so you make have to set the
65library and include paths with "configure" manually.
66See "./configure --help"
67
68
69USAGE
70-----
71Tcpstat needs input, be it "live" from a network interface, or from a
72"tcpdump" file written at some previous time. The command line options
73determine where tcpstat gets it's info. The man page is the best place to
74see how to use it. Some examples (from the man page):
75
76 tcpstat -i fxp0
77
78Displays the default statistics every 5 seconds of all traffic currently
79passing through the fxp0 network interface.
80
81 tcpstat -r file.dump
82
83Displays the default statistics every 5 seconds from the tcpdump(1)
84generated file "file.dump".
85
86 tcpstat -f 'port (smtp or http)' -o '%S %b\n' -r file.dump 2.3
87
88Displays every 2.3 seconds the timestamp together with smtp and http
89traffic throughput of the data from "file.dump", in a format which would
90be suitable for gnuplot(1).
91
92 tcpstat -b 28800 -r file.dump 0.5
93
94Displays what percentage of the traffic in file.dump exceeded the speed of
95my modem (28800 bits per second.)
96
97
98NOTES
99-----
100There is the option which allows the user to write to any (and/or
101multiple) arbitrary file descriptor(s). This is a very nice feature, and
102lets tcpstat write separate statistics into different files or pipes, for
103example. This is in and of itself not a security risk, because the user
104can do this trivially with any shell. However, if you choose to install
105the program setuid, then the user will be able to write on open file
106descriptors (for example the open /dev/bpf device) that the user in some
107cases may not normally have access to.
108
109Installing the program setuid is strongly discouraged, but if it is a must
110in your environment, you can disable this feature using the configure
111feature:
112 ./configure --disable-fdesc
113
114
115AUTHOR
116------
117Paul Herman <pherman@frenchfries.net>
118Cologne, Germany.
119
120Please send all bug reports to this address. Thanks for trying this out,
121and I hope it helps. It did for me.
122