NetHogs

What NetHogs is

NetHogs is a free, text-based network bandwidth monitor that groups traffic by process rather than by protocol or subnet. It can help identify the PID behind an unexpected rise in network traffic, making it useful when tracking down which program is using bandwidth. NetHogs does not require a special kernel module. Most features are available on Linux, where the tool relies heavily on `/proc`; on Mac OS X and FreeBSD, it can show connections but not the processes responsible. Its interface depends on ncurses, while user-level packet capture depends on libpcap. The project describes NetHogs as included in most Linux distributions and provides Arch Linux installation instructions using pacman. Source is available by cloning the repository or through GitHub Releases. Running as a non-root user requires specific capabilities, with additional capabilities needed to display process names. Traffic that cannot be matched to a process, such as traffic counted after a process has ended, appears in an “unknown TCP” bucket. The codebase can also build libnethogs, an experimental library that may break source and binary compatibility.