ntop is network traffic and statistic monitoring tool. ntopprovides similar philosophy to top command. There is also web based gui which makes it elegant to use. ntop packages are provided by popular distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Fedora, CentOs, RHEL etc.

Install ntop For Debian, Ubuntu, Kali, Mint

We can install ntop with apt like below.

$ sudo apt install ntop -y

Install ntop For Fedora, CentOS, RHEL

We can install ntop tool with the yum like below.

$ sudo yum install ntop -y

Set ntop Web Interface Password

As stated previously ntop provides web interface and console interface too. In order to use web interface we should set password. We can set password using ntop command with root privileges where sudo can be used.

$ sudo ntop

Start ntop Service

ntop can work as a web service too. We can start ntop service with the systemctl command like below.

$ sudo systemctl start ntop

Check ntop Service Status

We can check status of the ntop service with the status option of systemctl command. If the service is working we will see a green active in the output.

$ sudo systemctl status ntop

Enable Web Interface To The Network

By default web service is accessible from localhost. We need to enable it to the network to access remotely. We will edit configuration file /etc/ntop.conf

Change following line

--http-server 127.0.0.1:3000 --https-server 127.0.0.1:3001

to the following

--http-server 0.0.0.0:3000 --https-server 0.0.0.0:3001

and than restart service with the follwing command.

$ sudo systemctl restart ntop

Web Interface

We can use web interface of the ntop command using browser. Web interface is provided from TCP 3000 port by default. There is also HTTPS connection which is secure provided by TCP 3001 port. We will use admin username and password we set.