Ubuntu Manpage: iptstate - A top-like display of IP Tables state table entries

NAME

       iptstate - A top-like display of IP Tables state table entries

SYNOPSIS

       iptstate [<options>]

DESCRIPTION

       iptstate  displays  information  held  in  the  IP  Tables state table in real-time in a top-like format.
       Output can be sorted by any field, or any field reversed. Users can choose to have the output only  print
       once  and  exit,  rather  than  the top-like system. Refresh rate is configurable, IPs can be resolved to
       names, output can be formatted, the display can be filtered, and color coding are among some of the  many
       features.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

-c, --no-color
Toggle color-code by protocol

-C, --counters
Toggle display of bytes/packets counters

-d, --dst-filter IP[/NETMASK]
Only show states with a destination of IP and with optional NETMASK.
Note, that this must be an IP, hostname matching is not yet supported.

-D --dstpt-filter port
Only show states with a destination port of port

-h, --help
Show help message

-i, --invert-filters
Invert filters to display non-matching results

-l, --lookup
Show hostnames instead of IP addresses. Enabling this will also enable -L to prevent an ever-
growing number of DNS requests.

-m, --mark-truncated
Mark truncated hostnames with a '+'

-o, --no-dynamic
Toggle dynamic formatting

-L, --no-dns
Skip outgoing DNS lookup states

-f, --no-loopback
Filter states on loopback

-p, --no-scroll
No scrolling (don't use a "pad"). See SCROLLING AND PADS for more information.

-r, --reverse
Reverse sort order

-R, --rate seconds
Refresh rate, followed by rate in seconds. Note that this is for statetop mode, and not applicable
for single-run mode (--single).

-1, --single
Single run (no curses)

-b, --sort column
This determines what column to sort by. Options:
S Source Port
d Destination IP (or Name)
D Destination Port
p Protocol
s State
t TTL
b Bytes
P Packets
To sort by Source IP (or Name), don't use -b. Sorting by bytes/packets is only available for
kernels that support it, and only when compiled against libnetfilter_conntrack (the default).

-s, --src-filter IP[/NETMASK]
Only show states with a source of IP and with optional NETMASK.
Note, that this must be an IP, hostname matching is not yet supported.

-S, --srcpt-filter port
Only show states with a source port of port

-t, --totals
Toggle display of totals

INTERACTIVE OPTIONS

As of version 2.0, all command-line options are now available interactively using the same key as the
short-option. For example, --sort is also -b, so while iptstate is running, hitting b will change the
sorting to the next column. Similarly, t toggles the display of totals, and so on.

There are also extra interactive options: B - change sorting to previous column (opposite of b); q -
quit; and x - delete the currently highlighted state from the netfilter conntrack table.

Additionally, the following keys are used to navigate within iptstate:

Up or j - Move up one line

Down or k - Move down one line

Left or h - Move left one column

Right or l - Move right one column

PageUp or ^u - Move up one page

PageDown or ^d - Move down one page

Home - Go to the top

End - Go to the end

In many cases, iptstate needs to prompt you in order to change something. For example, if you want to set
or change the source-ip filter, when you hit s, iptstate will pop up a prompt at the top of the window to
ask you what you want to set it to.

Note that like many UNIX applications, ctrl-G will tell iptstate "nevermind" - it'll remove the prompt
and forget you ever hit s.

In most cases, a blank response means "clear" - clear the source IP filter, for example.

At anytime while iptstate is running, you can hit h to get to the interactive help which will display all
the current settings to you as well give you a list of all interactive commands available.

While running, space will immediately update the display. Iptstate should gracefully handle all window
resizes, but if it doesn't, you can force it to re-calculate and re-draw the screen with a ctrl-L.

Note that hitting l to enable hostname resolution while in interactive mode will also enable L to skip
all DNS entries (to prevent an ever-growing number of DNS requests).

SCROLLING AND PADS

       For  almost  any  user,  there  is  no  reason  to turn off scrolling. The ability to turn this off - and
       especially the ability to toggle this interactively - is done  more  for  theoretical  completeness  than
       anything else.

       But,  nonetheless, here are the details. Typically in a curses application you create a "window." Windows
       don't scroll, however. They are, at most, the size of your terminal. Windows provide double-buffering  to
       make  refreshing  as  fast  and seemless as possible. However, to enable scrolling, one has to use "pads"
       instead of windows. Pads can be bigger than the current terminal. Then all necessary data is  written  to
       the pad, and "scrolling" becomes a function of just showing the right part of that pad on the screen.

       However,  pads  do  not  have the double-buffering feature that windows have. Thus, there _might_ be some
       case where for some user using some very strange machine,  having  scrolling  enabled  could  cause  poor
       refreshing.  Given the nature of the way iptstate uses the screen though, I find this highly unlikely. In
       addition, the scrolling method uses a little more memory. However, iptstate is  not  a  memory  intensive
       application, so this shouldn't be a problem even on low-memory systems.

       Nonetheless, if this does negatively affect you, the option to turn it off is there.

EXIT STATUS

       Anything other than 0 indicates and error. A list of current exit statuses are below:

       0      Success

       1      Bad command-line arguments

       2      Error communicating with the netfilter subsystem.

       3      Terminal too narrow

BUGS

       We  don't support filtering on resolved names. IPv6 support is new and the dynamic formatting doesn't yet
       always handle IPv6 addresses as well as it should.

BUG REPORTS

       All bugs should be reported to Phil Dibowitz <phil AT ipom DOT com>. Please see the README and  BUGS  for
       more information on bug reports. Please read the WISHLIST before sending in features you hope to see.

NOTES

       iptstate  does  a  lot of work to try to fit everything on the screen in an easy-to-read way. However, in
       some cases, hostnames may need to be truncated (in lookup mode). Similarly, IPv6 addresses may need to be
       truncated.  The  truncation  of names happens from the right for source because you most likely know your
       own domain name, and from the left for destination because knowing your users are connection to "mail.a."
       doesn't help much. However, for addresses, this is reversed.

       iptstate  does  not  automatically  handle window-resizes while in the interactive help screen. If you do
       resize while in this window, you should return to the main window, hit ctrl-L to re-calculate and re-draw
       the screen, and then, if you choose, return to the interactive help.

       iptstate  currently  uses libnetfilter_conntrack to access the netfilter connection state table. However,
       older versions read out of /proc/net/ip_conntrack, and the current version can still be  compiled  to  do
       this.  This deprecated method can be racy on SMP systems, and can hurt performance on very heavily loaded
       firewalls. This deprecated method should be avoided - support will be removed in future versions.

AUTHOR

       iptstate was written by Phil Dibowitz <phil AT ipom DOT com>
       http://www.phildev.net/iptstate/

                                                    JUNE 2012                                        IPTSTATE(8)