ntap

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Crates.io

License

Network traffic monitor/analyzer, for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Overview

ntap provides comprehensive insights into your network’s activity, enabling users to monitor traffic, manage connections, and view network configurations with ease.

Features

  • Network Statistics: Dive into comprehensive statistics about your network traffic, covering bytes/bandwidth usage, top remote hosts, connections, and processes.
  • Real-time Monitoring: Monitor network utilization with country and Autonomous System (AS) or Internet Service Provider (ISP) information as it unfolds.
  • Live Packet Capture: Continuously track the flow of network packets in real-time, offering insights into ongoing traffic.
  • Connection Management: Quickly and effectively analyze active network connections to optimize performance and security.
  • Interface and Routing Insights: Obtain detailed views of network interfaces and routing tables to enhance network management and troubleshooting.

Usage

See usage

Prerequisites

  • Ensure you have a compatible operating system (Linux, macOS, Windows).

Installation

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/shellrow/ntap/releases/latest/download/ntap-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

irm https://github.com/shellrow/ntap/releases/latest/download/ntap-installer.ps1 | iex

From Releases

You can download archives of precompiled binaries from the releases

Using Cargo

cargo install ntap

Or you can use binstall for install ntap from github release.

cargo binstall ntap

Build from source

First, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/shellrow/ntap

Then, build the project:

cd ntap
cargo build --release
./target/release/ntap

Post-Install Configuration

The following post-install configuration steps are applicable to both the CLI version (ntap) and the desktop application (ntap-desktop).
These steps ensure that ntap has the necessary permissions and environment setup to function correctly on different operating systems.

Post-Install (Linux)

ntap requires elevated privileges to monitor network packets effectively. On Linux, you can configure these privileges using two main methods:

1. Using setcap

Granting capabilities to the ntap binary allows it to operate with the necessary privileges without requiring sudo for each execution.
This method is recommended for single-user machines or in environments where all users are trusted.

Assign necessary capabilities to the ntap binary

sudo setcap 'cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search,cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+ep' $(command -v ntap)

Run ntap as an unprivileged user:

ntap

Capabilities Explained:

  • cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search: Allows ntap to access /proc/<pid>/fd/ to identify which open port belongs to which process.
  • cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin: Enables packet capturing capabilities.

2. Using sudo (for multi-user environments)

For environments with multiple users, requiring privilege escalation each time ntap is run can enhance security.

sudo ntap

Post-Install (macOS)

On macOS, managing access to the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) devices is necessary for ntap to monitor network traffic:

Install chmod-bpf to automatically manage permissions for BPF devices:

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/shellrow/chmod-bpf/releases/latest/download/chmod-bpf-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via Homebrew

brew install shellrow/tap-chmod-bpf/chmod-bpf

Check BPF device permissions

chmod-bpf check

Install the chmod-bpf daemon to automatically manage BPF device permissions

sudo chmod-bpf install

Post-Install (Windows)

  • Ensure that you have Npcap installed, which is necessary for packet capturing on Windows
  • Download and install Npcap from Npcap. Choose the “Install Npcap in WinPcap API-compatible Mode” during installation.

License

ntap is released under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.