Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
NTOPNG(8)		     System Manager's Manual		       NTOPNG(8)

NAME
     ntopng - display top network users

SYNOPSIS
     ntopng [filename]

     or

     ntopng [-i <interface|pcap>] [-d <data_directory>] [-t <install_directory>]
     [-n  <mode>]  [-e]  [-1 <path>] [-2 <path>] [-3 <path>] [-w <[:]http_port>]
     [-W <[:]https_port>] [-m  <local_subnets>]  [-u|--no-promisc]  [-p  <proto-
     cols>]  [-P] [-q] [-r <redis_host[:port][@db-id]>] [-g <cpu_core_ids>] [-s]
     [-U <sys_user>] [-l<mode>] [-X <maxnumflows>] [-B <filter>] [-k <key>]  [-A
     <mode>]  [-x <max_num_hosts>] [-F <mode><dump-flows>] [-D <dump-hosts>] [-I
     <export-flows>] [-O <communities-list>] [-E <sticky-hosts>] [-t <dir>]  [-T
     <enable-taps>]  [-H] [--hw-timestamp-mode <mode>] [-N <name>] [-Z <prefix>]
     [--shutdown-when-done] [--zmq-encrypt-pwd <apssword>] [--capture-direction]
     [--online-license-check] [--print-ndpi-protocols] [-v <level>] [-V] [-h]

DESCRIPTION
     ntopng shows the current network usage. It displays a list  of  hosts  that
     are  currently using the network and reports information concerning the (IP
     and non-IP) traffic generated and received by each host.  ntopng may  oper-
     ate as a front-end collector or as a stand-alone collector/display program.
     A	web  browser  is needed to access the information captured by the ntopng
     program.

     ntopng is a hybrid layer 2 / layer 3 network monitor, by  default	it  uses
     the layer 2 Media Access Control (MAC) addresses AND the layer 3 tcp/ip ad-
     dresses.	ntopng	is capable of associating the two, so that ip and non-ip
     traffic (e.g. arp, rarp) are combined for a complete picture of network ac-
     tivity.

OPTIONS
     filename
      The text of filename is copied -- ignoring line breaks and  comment  lines
      (anything  following  a #) -- into the command line.  ntopng behaves as if
      all of the text had simply been typed directly on the command  line.   For
      example,	if  the command line is "ntopng s.conf" and file s.conf contains
      just the line '-s', then the effective command line is  "ntopng  -s".   In
      case  you  use  a configuration file, the following options on the command
      line will be ignored. Example "ntopng /etc/ntopng/ntopng.conf -v"  the  -v
      option is ignored.

      The  configuration file is similar to the command line, with the exception
      that an equal sign '=' must  be  used  between  key  and	value.	Example:
      -i=p1p2  or --interface=p1p2 For options with no value (e.g. -v) the equal
      is also necessary. Example: "-v=" must be used.

      Remember, most ntopng options are "sticky", that is they just set  an  in-
      ternal  flag. Invoking them multiple times doesn't change the ntopng's be-
      havior. However, options that set a value, such as --trace-level, will use
      the LAST value given: -w 8000 -w 8080 will run as -w 8080.

     -n|--dns-mode <mode>
      Sets the DNS address resolution mode:
      0 -- Decode DNS responses and resolve only local (-m) numeric IPs
      1 -- Decode DNS responses and resolve all numeric IPs
      2 -- Decode DNS responses and don't resolve numeric IPs
      3 -- Don't decode DNS responses and don't resolve numeric IPs

     -i|--interface <interface|pcap>
      Specifies the network interface or collector endpoint to be used by ntopng
      for network monitoring. On Unix you can specify both  the  interface  name
      (e.g.  lo)  or  the numeric interface id as shown by ntopng -h. On Windows
      you must use the interface number instead. Note that you	can  specify  -i
      multiple	times in order to instruct ntopng to create multiple interfaces.
      If you want to pipe data from stdin use - (dash) as device  name.  Example
      "cat ~/traffic.pcap | ./ntopng -i -".

      The  -i  option  can also be used to specify a unified view of more inter-
      faces, given they are provided in a  comma-separated  list  and  with  the
      "view:"  prefix  (e.g.  -i view:eth0,eth1). This is just a logical view of
      multiple physical interfaces.

      If a collector endpoint is specified, ntopng open a ZeroMQ  connection  to
      the specified endpoint as a subscriber whose format is  <ZMQ endpoint>. In
      this  case  ntopng acts as a client that subscribes to the remote endpoint
      and fetches flows. If you want the remote probe to send  flows  to  ntopng
      (as  in  NetFlow),  (you	need  to  add a 'c' at the collector endpoint in
      ntopng. Example: tcp://127.0.0.1:5556c (ntopng expects to receive flows on
      127.0.0.1:5556)	and    tcp://127.0.0.1:5556    (ntopng	  connects    to
      127.0.0.1:5556 to receive flows).  Note that you can specify multiple end-
      point,  commas separated list, in order to instruct ntopng to aggregate it
      in a single interface. (e.g -i tcp://127.0.0.1:5556,ipc://flows.ipc)

      If you want you can pass a path of a pcap file (e.g. -i dummy.pcap)  or  a
      path  of a list file contains a path of a pcap file for each line (e.g. -i
      pcap.list) and ntopng will read packets from the specified pcap file/s.

      nProbe can be instructed to act as a publisher delivering flows to  a  Ze-
      roMQ endpoint using the --ZMQ <endpoint> parameter.

      Finally  using  -i  dummy  it is possible to create a dummy interface that
      generates a large number of flows/hosts in order to  saturate  ntopng  re-
      sources.	This  way  ntopng  can	be tested for performance issues as well
      proper handling of low-memory situations.

     -d|--data-dir <path>
      Specifies the data directory (it must be writable). Default  directory  is
      /var/db/ntopng

     -t|--install-dir <path>
      Specifies  the installation directory. Default directory is retrieved from
      common install paths.

     -G|--pid-path <path>
      Specifies the path where	the  PID  (process  ID)  is  saved.  Default  is
      /var/run/ntopng.pid

     -k|--traffic-filtering <key>
      Set  the	key  used to access httpbl services (default: disabled).  Please
      read README.httpbl and README.flashstart for more info.

     -e|--daemon
      This parameter causes ntop to become a daemon, i.e. a task which	runs  in
      the  background  without	connection  to	a specific terminal. To use ntop
      other than as a casual monitoring tool, you probably will want to use this
      option.

     -1|--httpdocs-dir <path>
      Directory where HTTP documents are placed. Default: httpdocs.

     -2|--scripts-dir <path>
      Directory where lua scripts reside. Default: scripts.

     -3|--callbacks-dir <path>
      Directory where callback scripts reside. Default: scripts/callbacks.

     -w|--http-port <[:]http_port[,<alt_http_port>]>
      Sets the HTTP port of the embedded web server.  If  set  to  0,  the  http
      server  will be disabled. If you prepend a : before the port (i.e. -w :80)
      ntopng will listen to the loopback address. You can specify a second  HTTP
      port so that ntopng can isten on both ports. Example -w 80,3000 will start
      ntopng on both port 80 adn 3000. Note that for enabling the captive portal
      (not  available on the community edition) you need to start ntopng on port
      80.  NOTE: omitting the -w option won't disable http: ntopng will fallback
      to the default http port.

     -W|--https-port <[:]https_port>
      Sets the HTTPS port of the embedded web server. If not set, it will be set
      to the value of -w plus one. If you prepend a : before the port  (i.e.  -w
      :80) ntopng will listen to the loopback address.

     -m|--local-networks <local_nets>
      ntopng determines the ip addresses and netmasks for each active interface.
      Any  traffic  on those networks is considered local. This parameter allows
      the user to define additional networks and subnetworks  whose  traffic  is
      also  considered	local  in ntopng reports. All other hosts are considered
      remote. If not specified the default is set to 192.168.1.0/24.

      Commas separate multiple network values.	Both netmask and  CIDR	notation
      may     be     used,     even	mixed	  together,	for	instance
      "131.114.21.0/24,10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0".

     -u|--no-promisc
      Disable promiscuous mode when capturing from network  interfaces	(by  de-
      fault promiscuous mode is used).

     -p|--ndpi-protocols <file>.protos
      This  parameter  is  used  to specify a nDPI protocol file.  The format is
      <tcp|udp>:<port>,<tcp|udp>:<port>,.....@<proto> where  <port>  is  a  port
      number  and <proto> is a name of a protocol supported by nDPI protocol, or
      host:"<string>"@<proto> where string is part of an host name.  As  example
      see https://svn.ntop.org/svn/ntop/trunk/nDPI/example/protos.txt

     -P|--disable-host-persistency
      Disable host persistency in the Redis cache.

     -q|--disable-autologout
      Disable web interface logout for inactivity.

     -l|--disable-login
      Disable  user  login.  Mode can be set to 0 (disable login only for local-
      host) or 1 (disable login only for all hosts). This is  useful  for  debug
      purposes,  local	host access unrestricted, or if you want to let everyone
      access the web gui.  NOTE: this option lets anyone accessing the	web  in-
      terface  (from  localhost or from all hosts depending on the parameter) be
      administrator of the web interface.

     -r|--redis <redis_host[:port][@db
      Specifies the redis database host, port, and a database id. On  unix  <re-
      dis_host>  can be the redis socket file to connect to. If a socket connec-
      tion is made, <port> is ignored.	In case you plan to run multiple  redis-
      based  applications  on the same redis server, you need to use a different
      database id per application. For more information about redis, please  re-
      fer to http://redis.io/.

     -g|--core-affinity <cpu_core_id1[,cpu_core_id2,...]>
      Bind  the capture/processing threads to specific CPU cores, indicated in a
      comma-separated list. Cores are assigned to interface processing loops  in
      the  order  interfaces are mapped to IDs.  NOTE: ntopng automatically sets
      affinity of capture/processing threads to different CPU cores.

     -U|--user <user>
      Run ntopng with the specified system user instead of 'nobody'.

     -s|--dont-change-user
      Do not change user (debug only).

     -B|--packet-filter <filter>
      Specifies the packet filter for the specified interface. For  pcap/PF_RING
      interfaces  the  filter has to be specified in BPF format (Berkeley Packet
      Filter).

     -X|--max-num-flows <num>
      Specify the maximum number of active flows that  ntopng  will  handle.  If
      more flows are detected they will be discarded.

     -x|--max-num-hosts <num>
      Specify  the  maximum  number  of active hosts that ntopng will handle. If
      more hosts are detected they will be discarded.

     -F|--dump-flows <mode>
      If ntopng is compiled with sqlite support, flows can  dumped  persistently
      on  disk	using this option. The mode can be set to es - Dump on ntopng.es
      queue in Elasticsearch format that be insert on a  ES  database.	In  this
      case  the format is "es;<idx type>;<idx name>;<es URL>;<http auth>". Exam-
      ple: -F  "es;ntopng;ntopng-%Y.%m.%d;http://localhost:9200/_bulk;user:pwd".
      The <idx name> accepts the strftime() format.  mysql - Dump flows in MySQL
      tables.  In  this  case  the  format  is	"<host[@port]|unix  socket>:<db-
      name>:<table>:<user>:<pw>".	 Example	-F	   "mysql;local-
      host;ntopng;flows-%Y.%m.%d;root;".

     -D|--dump-hosts <mode>
      If  ntopng is compiled with sqlite support, hosts contacts can dumped per-
      sistently on disk using this option.  Databases are  created  daily  under
      <data  directory>/<interface>/contacts.  This  options supports three dump
      modes: local (dumps only local hosts), remote (dumps only  remote  hosts),
      all (dumps all hosts). If not specified, no hosts are dumped to disk.

     -I|--export-flows <endpoint>
      Export the expired flows on the specified endpoint. For instance supposing
      to  start  ntopng  on host 1.2.3.4 as ntopng -I "tcp://*:3456", it exports
      flows on this endpoint so that you can create a hierarchy of ntopng's. You
      can  achieve  that  by  starting	a  collector   ntopng	as   ntopng   -i
      tcp://1.2.3.4:3456

     -O|--communities-list <filename>
      Parse  the  specified  file and retrieve a list of communities, that are a
      logical representation of clusters of hosts that fall under the  same  ad-
      ministrative domain. The file must be in the following format:
	  communityX@id1=net1,net2,net3
	  communityY@id2=net4,net5,net6
	  ...

     -E|--dump-aggregations <mode>
      If  ntopng is compiled with sqlite support, hosts contacts can dumped per-
      sistently on disk using this option.  Databases are  created  daily  under
      <data  directory>/<interface>/contacts.  This  options supports three dump
      modes: local (dumps only aggregations contacted by  local  hosts),  remote
      (dumps only aggregations contacted by remote hosts), all (dumps all aggre-
      gations). If not specified, no hosts are dumped to disk.

     -S|--sticky-hosts <mode>
      ntopng  periodically  purges  idle  hosts. With this option you can modify
      this behaviour by telling ntopng not to purge the hosts specified  by  -S.
      This  parameter  requires an argument that can be "all" (Keep all hosts in
      memory), "local" (Keep only  local  hosts),  "remote"  (Keep  only  remote
      hosts), "none" (Flush hosts when idle).

     --hw-timestamp-mode <mode>
      Enable hw timestamping/stripping. Supported TS modes are:
      ixia -- Timestamped packets by ixiacom.com hardware devices.

     -t|--install-dir <dir>
      Force  ntopng  to use the HTML/lua files installed on the specified direc-
      tory. This option should not be used unless under testing or  development,
      as packaging systems should place the files at the right place.

     -T|--enable-taps <mode>
      Enable tap interfaces to dump packets on. If not specified, traffic can be
      dumped only on disk but not sent live to apps.

     -N|--instance-name <name>
      Assign  <name>  to  this	ntopng	instance.  Such  information  is used to
      uniquely identify the data source  and  thus  its  responsibility  of  the
      ntopng user to make sure that the name is unique across all the ntopng in-
      stances.	If  this option is not set, we assume as instance name the host-
      name where this ntopng instance is running.

     -Z|--http-prefix <prefix>
      HTTP prefix to be prepended to URLs. This is useful when using ntopng  be-
      hind  a proxy.  E.g. if you want to make the ntopng web interface accessi-
      ble through a proxy at a certain IP address with the /ntopng/ base URL and
      you have the following lines in your proxy's configuration:
	  ProxyPass /ntopng/ http://192.168.0.3:3000/ntopng/
	  ProxyPassReverse /ntopng/ http://192.168.0.3:3000/ntopng/
      You must use ntopng with -Z "/ntopng"
      Do not use trailing shashes in the HTTP prefix.

     --shutdown-when-done
      Terminate ntopng when the input pcap file is over (debug only).

     --zmq-encrypt-pwd
      This is the password used by the symmetric encryption on the  probe  side.
      Note  that  in  case you have multiple ZMQ endpoints, the same password is
      used for all of them.

     --capture-direction
      Specify the packet capture direction for	packet	capture  interfaces  (no
      ZMQ).  Supported values are: 0=RX+TX (default), 1=RX only, 2=TX only

     --online-license-check
      In  case	the  license  does  not  match (e.g. you are running ntopng on a
      VM/container) you can use this option to check your license instead of us-
      ing the local license file. Using this option we make sure that changes in
      your system do not interfere with license  check	(thing	that  we  cannot
      guarantee with file-based licenses).

     --print-ndpi-protocols
      Print the list of nDPI protocols supported by the ntopng instance

     -v|--verbose
      Verbose tracing: level 2 is normal, level 6 is debugging.

     -V|--version
      Print ntopng version and quit.

     -h|--help
      Help

WEB VIEWS
     While  ntopng is running, multiple users can access the traffic information
     using their web browsers.	ntopng makes use of JavaScript and LESS CSS.

     We do not expect problems with any current web browser, but our ability  to
     test  with  less common ones is very limited.  Testing has included Safari,
     Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, with very limited testing  on  other
     current common browsers such as Opera.

NOTES
     ntopng  requires a number of external tools and libraries to operate.  Cer-
     tain other tools are optional, but add to the program's capabilities.

     Required libraries include:

     libpcap from http://www.tcpdump.org/, version 1.0 or newer.

     The Windows version makes use of WinPcap (libpcap for Windows) which may be
     downloaded from http://winpcap.polito.it/install/default.htm.

     ntopng requires a POSIX threads library.

     The rrdtool library creates 'Round-Robin databases' which are used to store
     historical data in a format that permits long  duration  retention  without
     growing   larger	over   time.   The  rrdtool  home  page  is  http://peo-
     ple.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/rrdtool/

     The LuaJIT library is a Just-In-Time Compiler for Lua used to  execute  GUI
     and periodic scripts.

     The mongoose library is used to implement the HTTP server part of ntopng.

     zeromq is a socket library supporting the publish/subscribe pattern used to
     collect flows from nProbe

     ntopng  includes  LuaJIT,	mongoose, rrdtool and zeromq in the third-party/
     directory.  Users of ntopng should not need to  specifically  install  such
     libraries.

SEE ALSO
     top(1), tcpdump(8), pcap(3).

USER SUPPORT
     Please  send  bug	reports  to  https://github.com/ntop/ntopng/issues.  The
     ntopng <ntop@ntop.org> mailing list is used for discussing ntopng usage is-
     sues. In order to post messages on the lists a (free) subscription  is  re-
     quired  to limit/avoid spam. Please do NOT contact the authors directly un-
     less this is a personal question.

     Commercial support is available upon request. Please see the ntop site  for
     further info.

     Please send code patches via the github pull requests mechanism.

LICENCE
     ntopng is distributed under the GNU GPLv3 licence (http://www.gnu.org/).

			      Dev 2015 (ntopng 2.2)		       NTOPNG(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ntopng&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

home | help