Network-Monitoring Tools in Linux - ping, traceroute, tcpdump, ntop

Explain some Network-Monitoring Tools in Linux: ping, traceroute, tcpdump, ntop

Network monitoring tools are used to monitor the network, systems present on the network, traffic etc.

Ping: Ping command is used to check if the system is in the network or not. To check if the host is operating.

e.g. ping ip_address

When the command is executed, it returns a detailed summary of the host. Packets sent, received, lost by estimating the round trip time.

Traceroute: the command is used to trace the path taken by the packet across a network. Tracing the path here means finding out the hosts visited by the packet to reach its destination. This information is useful in debugging. Roundtrip time in ms is shown for every visit to a host.

Tcpdump: commonly used to monitor network traffic. Tcdump captures and displays packet headers and matching them against criteria or all. It interprets Boolean operators and accepts host names, ip address, network names as arguments.

Ntop: Network top shows the network usage. It displays summary of network usage by machines on the network in a format as of UNIX top utility. It can also be run in web mode, which allows the display to be browsed with a web browser. It can display network traffic statistics, identify host etc. Interfaces are available to view such information.

Explain some Network-Monitoring Tools in Linux: ping, traceroute, tcpdump, ntop

ping: Used to check whether the system is in the network or not and sends Internet Control Message Protocol ECHO_REQUEST packets to the hosts of network.

traceroute: Prints the route packets which were taken by the network host. traceroute utilizes the internet protocol’s ‘time to live’ field and elicits an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response. This response is elicited from every gateway including the path to one of the hosts.

tcpdump: To dump traffic over a network tcpdump command is used. The headers of the packets over a network interface are printed if the given Boolean expression is true. ntop: Network top program. It displays the summary of network usage of systems over network in a format which is reminiscent of unix top utility. If used in web mode, it displays the result on the web browser.