NAME¶
sntop —
top-like console network status
tool
SYNOPSIS¶
DESCRIPTION¶
sntop (simple network top) is a console utility, in the spirit
of top, that polls a list of hosts at a regular interval to determine if they
are online, displaying the results in a formatted table. This list is read on
load from a config file, sntoprc, located (by default) in ~/ or /etc. The
polling is done via ICMP
ping (1)
Optionally, the results can be used to generate an html page or ellicit the
execution of a file.
Interactive run-time commands exist:
q - quit
r - reload config file
w - toggle html page generation
any other key - force a refresh
COMMAND-LINE PARAMETERS¶
-d, --daemon - daemon mode: make sntop capable of running in
the background. note, it wont automatically fork into the background.
-o, --once - poll and display results once, then exit
-c, --nocolor - toggle the use of ncurses color for pretty
formatting
-p, --ping - use 'ping' in lieu of 'fping'. note, ping (in
particular on DOWN hosts) is slower than fping -- the performance of sntop
will suffer.
-w, --html - generate html output of results
-s, --secure - secure mode. command keys are disabled. SIGINT
must be used to terminate the program. this allows sntop to run nicely on
spare terminals galore. something like the following in
/etc/passwd can facilitate that:
sntop:x:123:123:sntop:/:/usr/local/bin/sntop -s
-e <file>, --wfile=file - output html to <file>
instead of sntop.html
-f <file>, --conf=file - read conf data from
<file> instead of ~/.sntoprc. note, sntop will still try to read from
/etc/sntoprc if <file> fails. if both fail, sntop will exit.
-r <time>, --refresh=time - refresh every <time>
seconds instead of 180
-a <file>, --alarm=file - alarm mode: execute
<file> when a site first goes DOWN
-l <file>, --log=file - log mode: execute <file>
whenever the status of a site changes
-b <bytes>, --byte=bytes - Number of bytes of ping data
to send
-v, --version - display version information and exit
-h, --help - display command-syntax help and exit
Command Execution Syntax¶
In alarm or log mode a file is executed on the occurence of change in status of
a given host. sntop will fork and exec the specified file, passing as
arguments information about the event. those arguments are:
<display name of host> <host name/IP>
<status>
<display name of host> the 'display' name (first sntop
collumn) of the machine, ie "MyBox"
<host name/IP> the explicit hostname or IP address of
the machine, ie "snaggle" or "192.168.55.12"
<status> the new status of the machine, "UP"
or "DOWN," this would obviously always be DOWN for alarm mode
Note, DOWN hosts will be logged in both modes upon load (ie, if they are down
when sntop loads, <file> is executed). No action is taken in any modes
for hosts that originate as UP -- thus, the default status is UP. We execute
an external file to remain in the UNIX tradition -- small, simple programs
that do one thing damn well. Thus, a logging option is not even provided -- a
two-line shell script will do fine, there. However, the possibilities are
powerful: administrator paging, for instance. See
alarm.sh
for an example script.
FILES¶
~/.sntoprc default config file location
/etc/sntoprc if a user's config is not found, this system-wide
one is read
/usr/share/man/man1/sntop.1.gz the man page
/usr/share/doc/sntop/examples/alarm.sh sample alarm-execute
script
/usr/bin/sntop the sntop executable
CONFIG FILE¶
An example config file, /usr/share/doc/sntop/examplessntoprc.EXAMPLE, is
included in the standard distribution. However, the config file syntax is
simple. Entries are RETURN terminated. Trailing whitespace is ignored. '#'
signifies a comment and can be used inline. By default, upto 32 characters
will be read, per line. All entries should be a single word, except comments.
The syntax:
Display Name
IP or host
Display Comments
Example:
Jimi
192.168.23.1
linux/sparc; firewall, http, ftp
sntop will first attempt to read the config file from
~/.sntoprc (or another location specified by -f). If that
fails, the system config file will be read from /etc/sntoprc. If both fail,
sntop will exit.
AUTHORS¶
sntop was written by Robert M. Love <rml@tech9.net> and
Christopher M. Rivera <cmrivera@ufl.edu>. Send us bug reports,
suggestions, and hardware.
SEE ALSO¶
top (1), ping (1), fping (1)