Bandwhich

bandwhich #

demo

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

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 #

Download a prebuilt binary #

If you’re on linux, you can download the generic binary from the releases.

Arch Linux # 

pacman -S bandwhich

Nix/NixOS #

bandwhich is available in nixpkgs, and can be installed, for example, with nix-env:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.bandwhich

Void Linux # 

xbps-install -S bandwhich

Fedora #

bandwhich is available in COPR, and can be installed via DNF:

sudo dnf copr enable atim/bandwhich -y && sudo dnf install bandwhich

macOS/Linux (using Homebrew) # 

brew install bandwhich

FreeBSD # 

pkg install bandwhich

or

cd /usr/ports/net-mgmt/bandwhich && make install clean

Windows / Other Linux flavours #

bandwhich can be installed using the Rust package manager, cargo. It might be in your distro repositories if you’re on linux, or you can install it via rustup. You can find additional installation instructions here.

The minimum supported Rust version is 1.39.0.

cargo install bandwhich
On Linux, after installing with cargo: #

Cargo installs bandwhich to ~/.cargo/bin/bandwhich but you need root priviliges to run bandwhich. To fix that, there are a few options:

  • Give the executable elevated permissions: sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search,cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+ep $(which bandwhich)
  • Run sudo ~/.cargo/bin/bandwhich instead of just bandwhich
  • Create a symlink: sudo ln -s ~/.cargo/bin/bandwhich /usr/local/bin/ (or another path on root’s PATH)
  • Set root’s PATH to match your own: sudo env "PATH=$PATH" bandwhich
  • Tell sudo to use your user’s environment variables: sudo -E bandwhich
  • Pass the desired target directory to cargo: sudo cargo install bandwhich --root /usr/local/bin/
On Windows, after installing with cargo: #

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

OpenWRT #

To install bandwhich on OpenWRT, you’ll need to compile a binary that would fit its processor architecture. This might mean you would have to cross compile if, for example, you’re working on an x86_64 and the OpenWRT is installed on an arm7. Here is an example of cross compiling in this situation:

  • Check the processor architecture of your router by using uname -m
  • Clone the bandwhich repository git clone https://github.com/imsnif/bandwhich
  • Install cross using cargo install cross
  • build the bandwhich package using cross build --target armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf
  • Copy the binary files from target/armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf/debug/bandwhich to the router using scp by running scp bandwhich [email protected]:~/ (here, 192.168.1.1 would be the IP address of your router).
  • Finally enter the router using ssh and run the binary directly with ./bandwhich

Usage # 

USAGE:
    bandwhich [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]

FLAGS:
    -a, --addresses            Show remote addresses table only
    -c, --connections          Show connections table only
    -h, --help                 Prints help information
    -n, --no-resolve           Do not attempt to resolve IPs to their hostnames
    -p, --processes            Show processes table only
    -r, --raw                  Machine friendlier output
    -s, --show-dns             Show DNS queries
    -t, --total-utilization    Show total (cumulative) usages
    -V, --version              Prints version information

OPTIONS:
    -i, --interface <interface>    The network interface to listen on, eg. eth0
    -d, --dns-server <dns-server>    A dns server ip to use instead of the system default

Note that since bandwhich sniffs network packets, it requires root privileges - so you might want to use it with (for example) sudo.

On Linux, you can give the bandwhich binary a permanent capability to use the required privileges, so that you don’t need to use sudo bandwhich anymore:

sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search,cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+ep `which bandwhich`

cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search gives bandwhich capability to list /proc/<pid>/fd/ and resolve symlinks in that directory. It needs this capability to determine which opened port belongs to which process. cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin gives bandwhich capability to capture packets on your system.

raw_mode #

bandwhich also supports an easier-to-parse mode that can be piped or redirected to a file. For example, try:

bandwhich --raw | grep firefox

Contributing #

Contributions of any kind are very welcome. If you’d like a new feature (or found a bug), please open an issue or a PR.

To set up your development environment:

  1. Clone the project
  2. cargo run, or if you prefer cargo run -- -i <network interface name> (you can often find out the name with ifconfig or iwconfig). You might need root privileges to run this application, so be sure to use (for example) sudo.

To run tests: cargo test

Note that at the moment the tests do not test the os layer (anything in the os folder).

If you are stuck, unsure about how to approach an issue or would like some guidance, you are welcome to contact: [email protected]

License #

MIT