NAME

       ip-monitor, rtmon - state monitoring

SYNOPSIS

       ip  [ ip-OPTIONS ] monitor [ all | OBJECT-LIST ] [ file FILENAME ]

DESCRIPTION

       The ip utility can monitor the state of devices, addresses and routes continuously.  This
       option has a slightly different format.  Namely, the monitor command is the first in the
       command line and then the object list follows:

       ip monitor [ all | OBJECT-LIST ] [ file FILENAME ]

       OBJECT-LIST is the list of object types that we want to monitor.  It may contain link,
       address, route, mroute, prefix, neigh and netconf.  If no file argument is given, ip opens
       RTNETLINK, listens on it and dumps state changes in the format described in previous
       sections.

       If the file option is given, the program does not listen on RTNETLINK, but opens the given
       file, and dumps its contents. The file should contain RTNETLINK messages saved in binary
       format.  Such a file can be generated with the rtmon utility.  This utility has a command
       line syntax similar to ip monitor.  Ideally, rtmon should be started before the first
       network configuration command is issued. F.e. if you insert:

               rtmon file /var/log/rtmon.log

       in a startup script, you will be able to view the full history later.

       Nevertheless, it is possible to start rtmon at any time.  It prepends the history with the
       state snapshot dumped at the moment of starting.

SEE ALSO

       ip(8)

AUTHOR

       Original Manpage by Michail Litvak <mci@owl.openwall.com>