Ubuntu Manpage: vnstat.conf - vnStat configuration file

NAME

       vnstat.conf - vnStat configuration file

SYNOPSIS

       /etc/vnstat.conf

DESCRIPTION

       vnstat(1),  vnstati(1)  and  vnstatd(8)  all  use  the  same configuration file for configuration related
       settings.  Some of the settings are common for all three programs. The file consists of  keyword-argument
       pairs,  one  per  line.  Empty  lines  and  lines  starting  with '#´ are interpreted as comments and not
       processed.  Arguments may optionally be enclosed in double quotes (") in  order  to  represent  arguments
       containing spaces. Arguments can be padded with spaces or tabulator characters. A hardcoded default value
       will be used if a keyword can't be found from the configuration file or if the configured value cannot be
       parsed or is outside supported value range.

       The  configuration  file  is  divided  into  three sections based on the usage of each keyword. The first
       section contains keywords that are considered common for all commands, the second section is  for  daemon
       related keywords and the last section is for image output.

COMMON KEYWORDS

       DatabaseDir
              Specifies  the  directory  where  the  database  is to be stored.  A full path must be given and a
              leading '/' isn't required.

       DayFormat, MonthFormat, TopFormat
              Formatting of date in available outputs. Uses the same format as  date(1).   (vnstat  and  vnstati
              only)

       DefaultDecimals
              Number of decimals to use in outputs. Value range: 0..2 (vnstat and vnstati only)

       HourlyDecimals
              Number of decimals to use in hourly graph output. Value range: 0..2 (vnstat only)

       HourlySectionStyle
              Select  what  kind  of  spacer  is  used for separating the numerical sections of the hourly graph
              output. 0 = none, 1 = '|', 2 = '][', 3 = '[ ]'.  (vnstat only)

       Interface
              Default interface used when no other interface is specified on the command line. Leave  empty  for
              automatic  selection.  The automatic selection will prioritize the interface with most traffic for
              outputs doing database queries.  Queries not using the database will first check if  the  database
              is  available  and  select the interface with most traffic out those that are currently visible in
              the system. If no database can be read then the first available interface will  be  used.  (vnstat
              and vnstati only)

       List5Mins, ListHours, ListDays, ListMonths, ListYears, ListTop
              Number  of  entries  to show in list outputs unless overridden from the command line.  Set to 0 to
              show all entries available in the database.  (vnstat and vnstati)

       Locale Locale setting to be used for prints. This replaces the LC_ALL environment variable. Set to "-" or
              leave empty in order to use the system default value. (vnstat and vnstati only)

       OutputStyle
              Modify the content and style of text outputs. 0 = minimal and  narrow  output  for  terminal  with
              limited  width, 1 = normal output with bar column visible, 2 = same as 1 except rate is visible in
              summary output, 3 = rate column is visible in all outputs where  it  is  supported.   (vnstat  and
              vnstati only)

       QueryMode
              Default  query  mode  when no parameters are given. 0 = normal, 1 = days, 2 = months, 3 = top, 5 =
              short, 6 = years, 7 = hours graph, 8 = xml, 9 = one line, 10 = json, 11 = hours and 12 = 5 minute.
              (vnstat only)

       RateUnit
              Select which unit is used when traffic rate is visible. 0 = bytes, 1 = bits.  (vnstat and  vnstati
              only)

       RateUnitMode
              Select  used  prefix  when  traffic  rate  is  shown  in bits per second.  IEC binary prefixes are
              calculated with powers of 1024. SI decimal prefixes are calculated with powers of 1000.  0  =  IEC
              binary prefixes (Kibit/s...), 1 = SI decimal prefixes (kbit/s...).  (vnstat and vnstati only)

       RXCharacter, TXCharacter
              Character  used  for representing the percentual share of received and transmitted traffic in list
              mode outputs. (vnstat only)

       RXHourCharacter, TXHourCharacter
              Character used for representing the percentual share of received and transmitted traffic in hourly
              graph output. (vnstat only)

       Sampletime
              Defines how many seconds the -tr option will sample traffic.  Value range: 2..600 (vnstat only)

       UnitMode
              Select how units are prefixed. IEC and JEDEC binary prefixes are calculated with powers  of  1024.
              SI   decimal   prefixes   are  calculated  with  powers  of  1000.   0  =  IEC  standard  prefixes
              (B/KiB/MiB/GiB...), 1 = old style  (JEDEC)  binary  prefixes  (B/KB/MB/GB...),  2  =  SI  decimals
              prefixes (B/kB/MB/GB...)  (vnstat and vnstati only)

DAEMON RELATED KEYWORDS

5MinuteHours
Data retention duration for the 5 minute resolution entries. The configuration defines for how
many past hours entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the
data collection of this resolution.

64bitInterfaceCounters
Select interface counter handling. Set to 1 for defining that all interfaces use 64-bit counters
on the kernel side and 0 for defining 32-bit counter Set to -1 for using the old style logic used
in earlier versions where counter values within 32-bits are assumed to be 32-bit and anything
larger is assumed to be a 64-bit counter. This may produce false results if a 64-bit counter is
reset within the 32-bits. Set to -2 for using automatic detection based on available kernel
datastructures.

BandwidthDetection
Try to automatically detect MaxBandwidth value for each monitored interface. Mostly only ethernet
interfaces support this feature. MaxBandwidth or interface specific MaxBW will be used as
fallback value if detection fails. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

BandwidthDetectionInterval
How often in minutes interface specific detection of MaxBandwidth is done for detecting possible
changes when BandwidthDetection is enabled. Can be disabled by setting to 0. Value range: 0..30

BootVariation
Time in seconds how much the boot time reported by system kernel can variate between updates.
Value range: 0..300

CheckDiskSpace
Enable or disable the availability check of at least some free disk space before a database write.
1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

CreateDirs
Enable or disable the creation of directories when a configured path doesn't exist. This includes
DatabaseDir , LogFile and PidFile directories. The LogFile directory will be created only when
UseLogging has been set to 1. The PidFile directory will be created only if the daemon is started
as a background process. The daemon process will try to create the directory using permissions of
the user used to start the process.

DaemonGroup
Specify the group to which the daemon process should switch during startup. The group can either
be the name of the group or a numerical group id. Leave empty to disable group switching. This
option can only be used when the process is started as root.

DaemonUser
Specify the user to which the daemon process should switch during startup. The user can either be
the login of the user or a numerical user id. Leave empty to disable user switching. This option
can only be used when the process is started as root.

DailyDays
Data retention duration for the one day resolution entries. The configuration defines for how many
past days entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the data
collection of this resolution.

DatabaseSynchronous
Change the setting of the SQLite "synchronous" flag which controls how much care is taken to
ensure disk writes have fully completed when writing data to the database before continuing other
actions. Higher values take extra steps to ensure data safety at the cost of slower performance. A
value of 0 will result in all handling being left to the filesystem itself. Set to -1 to select
the default value according to database mode controlled by DatabaseWriteAheadLogging setting. See
SQLite documentation for more details regarding values from 1 to 3. Value range: -1..3

DatabaseWriteAheadLogging
Enable or disable SQLite Write-Ahead Logging mode for the database. See SQLite documentation for
more details and note that support for read-only operations isn't available in older SQLite
versions. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

HourlyDays
Data retention duration for the one hour resolution entries. The configuration defines for how
many past days entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the data
collection of this resolution.

LogFile
Specify log file path and name to be used if UseLogging is set to 1.

MaxBandwidth
Maximum bandwidth for all interfaces. If the interface specific traffic exceeds the given value
then the data is assumed to be invalid and rejected. Set to 0 in order to disable the feature.
Value range: 0..50000

MaxBW Same as MaxBandwidth but can be used for setting individual limits for selected interfaces. The
name of the interface is specified directly after the MaxBW keyword without spaces. For example
MaxBWeth0 for eth0 and MaxBWppp0 for ppp0. Value range: 0..50000

MonthlyMonths
Data retention duration for the one month resolution entries. The configuration defines for how
many past months entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the
data collection of this resolution.

MonthRotate
Day of month that months are expected to change. Usually set to 1 but can be set to alternative
values for example for tracking monthly billed traffic where the billing period doesn't start on
the first day. For example, if set to 7, days of February up to and including the 6th will count
for January. Changing this option will not cause existing data to be recalculated. Value range:
1..28

MonthRotateAffectsYears
Enable or disable MonthRotate also affecting yearly data. Applicable only when MonthRotate has a
value greater than one. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

OfflineSaveInterval
How often in minutes cached interface data is saved to file when all monitored interfaces are
offline. Value range: SaveInterval..60

PidFile
Specify pid file path and name to be used.

PollInterval
How often in seconds interfaces are checked for status changes. Value range: 2..60

SaveInterval
How often in minutes cached interface data is saved to file. Value range: ( UpdateInterval / 60
)..60

SaveOnStatusChange
Enable or disable the additional saving to file of cached interface data when the availability of
an interface changes, i.e., when an interface goes offline or comes online. 1 = enabled, 0 =
disabled.

TimeSyncWait
How many minutes to wait during daemon startup for system clock to sync if most recent database
update appears to be in the future. This may be needed in systems without a real-time clock (RTC)
which require some time after boot to query and set the correct time. 0 = wait disabled. Value
range: 0..60

TopDayEntries
Data retention duration for the top day entries. The configuration defines how many of the past
top day entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the data
collection of this resolution.

TrafficlessEntries
Create database entries even when there is no traffic during the entry's time period. 1 = enabled,
0 = disabled.

UpdateFileOwner
Enable or disable the update of file ownership during daemon process startup. During daemon
startup, only database, log and pid files will be modified if the user or group change feature (
DaemonUser or DaemonGroup ) is enabled and the files don't match the requested user or group.
During manual database creation, this option will cause file ownership to be inherited from the
database directory if the directory already exists. This option only has effect when the process
is started as root or via sudo.

UpdateInterval
How often in seconds the interface data is updated. Value range: PollInterval..300

UseLogging
Enable or disable logging. 0 = disabled, 1 = logfile and 2 = syslog.

YearlyYears
Data retention duration for the one year resolution entries. The configuration defines for how
many past years entries will be stored. Set to -1 for unlimited entries or to 0 to disable the
data collection of this resolution.

IMAGE OUTPUT RELATED KEYWORDS

       CBackground
              Background color.

       CEdge  Edge color, if visible.

       CHeader
              Header background color.

       CHeaderTitle
              Header title text color.

       CHeaderDate
              Header date text color.

       CLine  Line color.

       CLineL Lighter version of line color. Set to '-' in order to use a calculated value based on CLine.

       CRx    Color for received data.

       CRxD   Darker version of received data color. Set to '-' in order to use a calculated value based on CRx.

       CText  Common text color.

       CTx    Color for transmitted data.

       CTxD   Darker  version  of transmitted data color. Set to '-' in order to use a calculated value based on
              CTx.

       HeaderFormat
              Formatting of date in header. Uses the same format as date(1).

       HourlyRate
              Show hours with rate instead of transferred amount. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

       SummaryRate
              Show rate in summary output if available. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

       TransparentBg
              Set background color as transparent. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled.

FILES

       /etc/vnstat.conf
              Config file that will be used unless $HOME/.vnstatrc exists  or  alternative  value  is  given  as
              command line parameter.

RESTRICTIONS

       Using  long date output formats may cause misalignment in shown columns if the length of the date exceeds
       the fixed size allocation.

AUTHOR

       Teemu Toivola <tst at iki dot fi>