alternative to "top" for system monitoring?


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OK, here it goes...

 

1. Get it from:  http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.2/hardware/htop/0.8.3/htop-0.8.3-i486-1sl.tgz

2. Put it on your flash drive, say in folder /packages/

3. Telnet to your unraid server and type:

installpkg /boot/packages/htop-0.8.3-i486-1sl.tgz

 

You may want to put that last line in your "go" script so that htop is automatically installed every time you start your server.

 

Purko

 

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OK. I installed iftop to see what it could show me.

 

Almost immediately I see my server is connecting to boudicca.tux.org.

 

There is traffic to/from this host for a minute or so, then it disappears until the pattern repeats a minute or two later.

 

Can anyone please tell me if there is some legitimate reason for any unRAID application to communicate with this host?

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OK. I installed iftop to see what it could show me.

 

Almost immediately I see my server is connecting to boudicca.tux.org.

 

There is traffic to/from this host for a minute or so, then it disappears until the pattern repeats a minute or two later.

 

Can anyone please tell me if there is some legitimate reason for any unRAID application to communicate with this host?

 

Maybe iftop uses that network host for its check to see if an interface is up/down/routeable ? It would be the only unRAID app that I could imagine would try contacting that host.

 

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In my case I'm seeing traffic to malcolm.kivimaa.fi. How can I easily check whether this traffic is generated by iftop or if there is something else lurking in the system? I'm from Finland so it would be a logical assumption that there is somekind of geographically prioritised list of servers to contact (if that's the case in general). I did a simple google search with iftop and kivimaa and the owner of that particular domain is active developer of debian (nick name killer). Making a similar seach with boudicca.tux.org revealed that it used to be a server hosting linux related data (tux.org is still valid and fully related to Linux).

 

So I'm not too worried but it would be nice if someone actually knew the real deal. I might take a look on the source code of iftop just to make sure what is going on.

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In my case I'm seeing traffic to malcolm.kivimaa.fi. How can I easily check whether this traffic is generated by iftop or if there is something else lurking in the system? I'm from Finland so it would be a logical assumption that there is somekind of geographically prioritised list of servers to contact (if that's the case in general). I did a simple google search with iftop and kivimaa and the owner of that particular domain is active developer of debian (nick name killer). Making a similar seach with boudicca.tux.org revealed that it used to be a server hosting linux related data (tux.org is still valid and fully related to Linux).

 

So I'm not too worried but it would be nice if someone actually knew the real deal. I might take a look on the source code of iftop just to make sure what is going on.

I just ran iftop through the "strings" program and did not see any reference to malcolm.kivimaa.fi or boudicca.tux.org. 

 

I also just installed iftop on my server and do not see any un-expected network traffic.  All I see are communications between the server and PCs on my local lan.  Could it be your NNTP time server being queried you are seeing?

 

JarDo... thanks for the unMENU package manager config files.  It makes it so much easier for others, and also easier for me!!

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In my case I'm seeing traffic to malcolm.kivimaa.fi. How can I easily check whether this traffic is generated by iftop or if there is something else lurking in the system? I'm from Finland so it would be a logical assumption that there is somekind of geographically prioritised list of servers to contact (if that's the case in general). I did a simple google search with iftop and kivimaa and the owner of that particular domain is active developer of debian (nick name killer). Making a similar seach with boudicca.tux.org revealed that it used to be a server hosting linux related data (tux.org is still valid and fully related to Linux).

 

So I'm not too worried but it would be nice if someone actually knew the real deal. I might take a look on the source code of iftop just to make sure what is going on.

I just ran iftop through the "strings" program and did not see any reference to malcolm.kivimaa.fi or boudicca.tux.org.   

 

I also just installed iftop on my server and do not see any un-expected network traffic.  All I see are communications between the server and PCs on my local lan.  Could it be your NNTP time server being queried you are seeing?

 

 

Every time I open iftop I see this behavior repeated with a different server. boudicca.tux.org only showed up one time. At the moment the connection is to mirror. I do have NTP enabled in unRAID. If these servers are members of pool.ntp.org I guess that would answer the question. I don't know how to check if they are though. I am also a bit surprised that NTP would connect every few minutes. I assumed it was a once a day kind of thing.

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JarDo... thanks for the unMENU package manager config files.  It makes it so much easier for others, and also easier for me!!

 

Joe,  You are welcome, but really, it is my way of thanking you.  I'm trying to encourage the use of unMenu because it is such a useful mod.  I can't imagine unRaid without it.  (Well, I can, but unRaid would be much more complicated to manage and not near as much fun without unMenu.  Yes, I think unRaid is fun.  There I said it.  I'm a geek.)

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If you press the letter "p" while iftop is running you will enable the display of the protocol involved. 

 

In my case, an "odd" server being contacted on occasion was indeed for NTP time.

This was also the case with my "mysterious" malcolm.kivimaa.fi host.

 

How could I make iftop working nicely over telnet connection from a windows client? Currently the formatting of the screen is wrong, I have tried with different command prompt settings but have not been able to make the lines align. Iftop works well when run locally on unraid server.

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If you press the letter "p" while iftop is running you will enable the display of the protocol involved. 

 

In my case, an "odd" server being contacted on occasion was indeed for NTP time.

This was also the case with my "mysterious" malcolm.kivimaa.fi host.

 

How could I make iftop working nicely over telnet connection from a windows client? Currently the formatting of the screen is wrong, I have tried with different command prompt settings but have not been able to make the lines align. Iftop works well when run locally on unraid server.

Easy... download and install "putty" a much improved windows telnet client.

Use it to connect to the unRAID server instead of the telnet built into windows.

 

The screen will look perfect, and even the mouse will work.

 

Joe L.

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Everything is working perfectly now. I knew that Putty was the best upgrade for telnet but never had big enough problems to justify the update (all the hard work required for the installation, all 3 minutes of it  ;) ). As a bonus also the function keys in mc and mcedit are now working. So thanx for the tip!

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  • 9 months later...

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