IFPPS(8) netsniff-ng toolkit IFPPS(8)NAMEifpps - top-like networking and system statistics
SYNOPSISifpps { [options] | [device] }
DESCRIPTIONifpps is a small utility which periodically provides top-like network‐
ing and system statistics from the kernel. ifpps gathers its data
directly from procfs files and does not make use of any user space mon‐
itoring libraries which would falsify statistics under high load.
For instance, consider the following scenario: two directly connected
Linux machines with Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz CPUs, 4 GB RAM, and
an Intel 82566DC-2 Gigabit Ethernet NIC are used for performance evalu‐
ation. One machine generates 64 byte network packets by using the ker‐
nel space packet generator pktgen with a maximum possible packet rate.
The other machine displays statistics about incoming network packets by
using i) iptraf(8) and ii) ifpps.
iptraf which incorporates pcap(3) shows an average packet rate of
246,000 pps while on the other hand ifpps shows an average packet rate
of 1,378,000 pps. Hence, due to packet copies and deferring statistics
creation into user space, a measurement error of approximately 460 per‐
cent occurs. Tools like iptraf might display much more information such
as TCP per flow statistics (hence the use of the pcap library). This is
not possible with ifpps, because overall networking statistics are its
focus; statistics, which are also fairly reliable under high packet
load.
ifpps also periodically displays CPU load, interrupt, software inter‐
rupt data per sample interval as well as total interrupts, all per CPU.
In case the number of CPUs exceeds 5 or the number specified by the
user with the “-n” command line option, ifpps will only display this
number top heavy hitters. The topmost heavy hitter CPU will be marked
with “+”. The least heavy hitter will always be displayed and is
marked with “-”. In addition, the average for all the above per-CPU
data is shown. Optionally the median values can be displayed using the
“-m” command line option.
ifpps also supports directly the gnuplot(1) data sample format. This
facilitates creation of gnuplot figures from ifpps time series.
OPTIONS-d <netdev>, --dev <netdev>
Networking device to fetch statistics from, for example eth0, wlan0.
-n, --num-cpus
Set maximum number of top hitter CPUs (in terms of time spent in sys‐
tem/user mode) to display in ncurses mode, default is 10.
-t <time>, --interval <time>
Statistics refresh interval in milliseconds, default is 1000ms.
-c, --csv
Output (once) the ncurses data to the terminal as gnuplot(1)-ready
data.
-l, --loop
Continuously output the terminal data after a refresh interval. This
option is only available if option “-c” is given. For “-l” it is usu‐
ally recommended to redirect the output into a file that is to be pro‐
cessed later with gnuplot(1).
-m, --median
Show median values across all CPUs for CPU load, interrupts (per inter‐
val and absolute) and software interrupts.
-o, --omit-header
Omit printing the CSV header. This option is only available if “-c” is
given.
-p, --promisc
Turn on promiscuous mode for the given networking device.
-P, --percentage
Show percentage of current throughput in relation to theoretical line
rate.
-W, --no-warn
Suppress possible warnings in the ncurses output, e.g. about a too low
sampling interval that could cause performance regression.
-v, --version
Show version information.
-h, --help
Show user help.
USAGE EXAMPLEifpps eth0
Default ncurses output for the eth0 device.
ifpps-pd eth0
Ncurses output for the eth0 device in promiscuous mode.
ifpps-lpcd wlan0 > plot.dat
Continuous terminal output for the wlan0 device in promiscuous mode.
NOTE
On 10Gbit/s cards or higher, receive and transmit statistics are usu‐
ally accumulated at a higher duration interval than 1 second. Thus, it
might be advisable to alter the timing to a higher accumulation inter‐
val for such cards.
LEGALifpps is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2.0.
HISTORYifpps was originally written for the netsniff-ng toolkit by Daniel
Borkmann. It is currently maintained by Tobias Klauser <tklauser@dis‐
tanz.ch> and Daniel Borkmann <dborkma@tik.ee.ethz.ch>.
SEE ALSOnetsniff-ng(8), trafgen(8), mausezahn(8), bpfc(8), flowtop(8),
astraceroute(8), curvetun(8)AUTHOR
Manpage was written by Daniel Borkmann.
COLOPHON
This page is part of the Linux netsniff-ng toolkit project. A descrip‐
tion of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at http://netsniff-ng.org/.
Linux 03 March 2013 IFPPS(8)