FreeBSD Install vnStat – A Console-Based Network Traffic Monitor

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vnStat is a console-based network traffic monitor for Linux and BSD systems that can be used to keep track of network traffic usage. Here’s how to install vnStat on FreeBSD:

  1. Install vnStat using the package manager:
sudo pkg install vnstat
  1. Create the vnStat database and configure the default interface:
sudo vnstat -u -i re0

Replace “re0” with the name of your network interface.

  1. Start the vnStat daemon and enable it to start at boot:
sudo service vnstat start
sudo sysrc vnstat_enable=YES
  1. Verify that vnStat is running:
sudo service vnstat status
  1. To view the network traffic statistics, use the following command:
vnstat

By default, vnStat displays the traffic statistics for the last hour, day, week, month, and year. You can also use the “-h”, “-d”, “-w”, “-m”, and “-y” options to view the statistics for specific time periods.

For example, to view the hourly statistics for the last day:

vnstat -h

To view the daily statistics for the last week:

vnstat -d

To view the weekly statistics for the last month:

vnstat -w

To view the monthly statistics for the last year:

vnstat -m

To view the yearly statistics:

vnstat -y

With these steps, you should have vnStat installed and running on your FreeBSD system, and be able to monitor network traffic usage.

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