vnstat -- internet traffic monitor

vnstat [link] is a cool console based(yet easy to use) tool which I use to monitor my bandwidth usage in Linux.

Please Note : It does not start monitoring right away. Once you install you have to run

vnstat -u -i interface

(as it says in the man page) (for me the interface is eth0 the name of my Ethernet port that ifconfig command throws out). Also to be noted is – vnstat does not automatically update the transfer statistics. Entering the command manually is a chore so I added the following line to crontab (as root/su i.e the roots' crontab)

*/5 * * * * vnstat -u

It updates the vnstat database every 5 minutes (you can give a suitable interval).

Disclaimer : I being a noob when it comes to Linux got the script form somewhere else (on the broad internet) but now that I search for the source site I cannot find it and hence cannot acknowledge the source : to the anonymous source – thanks a lot.

yumex -- gui for yum

If yum's (the package manager of fedora) console operations seems “uncivilized” to you a nice little package that gives you a gui front end for yum [link] is “yumex”. Type in (with su privileges)

yum install yumex

to install yumex. And yumex your way to nirvana.

hello world

Hi, all
I cordially welcome one and all here.
I am starting this blog as a place to post out all the (hardcore) tech funda (gyaan). Which I though would be better kept off my other (generic) blog [link], to avoid scaring off wayward visitors there. The posts maybe rare, more so in the beginning, I hope that this space will become more active by some unspecified future date.

Have fun ....