bandwhich

This is a CLI utility for displaying current network utilization by process, connection and remote IP/hostname

Table of contents

• bandwhich
  • Table of contents
  • Project status
  • How does it work?
  • Installation
    • Downstream packaging status
    • Download a prebuilt binary
  • Building from source
    • Cross-compiling
      • Android
  • Post install (Linux)
    • 1. setcap
      • Capabilities explained
    • 2. sudo (or alternative)
  • Post install (Windows)
  • Usage
  • Contributing
  • License

Project status

This project is in passive maintenance. Critical issues will be addressed, but no new features are being worked on. However, this is due to a lack of funding and/or manpower more than anything else, so pull requests are more than welcome. In addition, if you are able and willing to contribute to this project long-term, we would like to invite you to apply for co-maintainership.

For more details, see The Future of Bandwhich #275.

How does it work?

bandwhich sniffs a given network interface and records IP packet size, cross referencing it with the /proc filesystem on linux, lsof on macOS, or using WinApi on windows. It is responsive to the terminal window size, displaying less info if there is no room for it. It will also attempt to resolve ips to their host name in the background using reverse DNS on a best effort basis.

Installation

Downstream packaging status

For detailed instructions for each platform, see INSTALL.md.

Download a prebuilt binary

We offer several generic binaries in releases for various OSes.

OS	Architecture	Support	Usage
Android	aarch64	Best effort	All modern Android devices. Note that this is a pure binary file, not an APK suitable for general usage.
Linux	aarch64	Full	64-bit ARMv8+ (servers, some modern routers, RPi-4+).
	armv7hf	Best effort	32-bit ARMv7 (older routers, pre-RPi-4).
	x64	Full	Most Linux desktops & servers.
MacOS	aarch64	Full	Apple silicon Macs (2021+).
	x64		Intel Macs (pre-2021).
Windows	x64	Full	Most Windows desktops & servers.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/imsnif/bandwhich.git
cd bandwhich
cargo build --release

For the up-to-date minimum supported Rust version, please refer to the rust-version field in Cargo.toml.

Cross-compiling

Cross-compiling for alternate targets is supported via cross. Here's the rough procedure:

1. Check the target architecture. If on Linux, you can use uname -m.
2. Lookup rustc platform support for the corresponding target triple.
3. Install cross.
4. Run cross build --release --target <TARGET_TRIPLE>.

Android

Until cross-rs/cross#1222 is solved, use the latest HEAD:

cargo install --git https://github.com/cross-rs/cross.git cross
cross build --release --target aarch64-linux-android

Post install (Linux)

Since bandwhich sniffs network packets, it requires elevated privileges. On Linux, there are two main ways to accomplish this:

1. setcap

• Permanently allow the bandwhich binary its required privileges (called "capabilities" in Linux).
• Do this if you want to give all unprivileged users full access to bandwhich's monitoring capabilities.
  • This is the recommended setup for single user machines, or if all users are trusted.
  • This is not recommended if you want to ensure users cannot see others' traffic.

# assign capabilities
sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search,cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+ep $(command -v bandwhich)
# run as unprivileged user
bandwhich

Capabilities explained

• cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search: allow access to /proc/<pid>/fd/, so that bandwhich can determine which open port belongs to which process.
• cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin: allow capturing packets on your system.

2. sudo (or alternative)

• Require privilege escalation every time.
• Do this if you are an administrator of a multi-user environment.

sudo bandwhich

Note that if your installation method installed bandwhich to somewhere in your home directory (you can check with command -v bandwhich), you may get a command not found error. This is because in many distributions, sudo by default does not keep your user's $PATH for safety concerns.

To overcome this, you can do any one of the following:

1. make sudo preserve your $PATH environment variable;
2. explicitly set $PATH while running bandwhich: sudo env "PATH=$PATH" bandwhich;
3. pass the full path to sudo: sudo $(command -v bandwhich).

Post install (Windows)

You might need to first install npcap for capturing packets on Windows.

Usage

Usage: bandwhich [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -i, --interface <INTERFACE>      The network interface to listen on, eg. eth0
  -r, --raw                        Machine friendlier output
  -n, --no-resolve                 Do not attempt to resolve IPs to their hostnames
  -s, --show-dns                   Show DNS queries
  -d, --dns-server <DNS_SERVER>    A dns server ip to use instead of the system default
      --log-to <LOG_TO>            Enable debug logging to a file
  -v, --verbose...                 Increase logging verbosity
  -q, --quiet...                   Decrease logging verbosity
  -p, --processes                  Show processes table only
  -c, --connections                Show connections table only
  -a, --addresses                  Show remote addresses table only
  -u, --unit-family <UNIT_FAMILY>  Choose a specific family of units [default: bin-bytes] [possible values: bin-bytes, bin-bits, si-bytes, si-bits]
  -t, --total-utilization          Show total (cumulative) usages
  -h, --help                       Print help (see more with '--help')
  -V, --version                    Print version

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT