If the top command shows the processes currently taking the most CPU time and memory, iftop displays network usage by connection making your hosts’ bandwidth moitoring usage easier.  Iftop displays a table of hosts and their bandwidth usage for the past 2, 10 and 40 seconds. Identifying which hosts are causing network congestion is easy using iftop since it displays the pair of hosts responsible for most of the bandwidth on the top of the table.

iftop overview:

• iftop (interface top) derives the name from the standard unix top command. top command displays real-time CPU Usage. iftop command displays real-time network bandwidth usage.
• iftop displays the network usage of a specific interface on the host.
• Using iftop you can identify which host is responsible for slowing down your network.
• To find out which process is causing the problem, note down the port number from the iftop and use netstat -p to identify the process.
• iftop monitors your network activity, and displays a table of current bandwidth.

Download iftop

# cd /root
# wget http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/iftop/download/iftop-0.17.tar.gz

Install iftop

# cd /root
# tar -xzvf iftop-0.17.tar.gz
# cd iftop-0.17
# ./configure
# make
# make install

Use iftop

#iftop

iftop commands

S - display source port
D - display destination port
n - show IP instead of host name
1/2/3 - sort by the specified column
< - sort by source name
> - sort by dest name
P - pause display
j/k - scroll display
? - for help

Popularity: 1% [?]

With the first Android-powered phone set to go on sale tomorrow, Google has released the Android source code to encourage developers to develop applications based on the Android operating system. Not only that, developers can help improve the Android operating system by submitting new features, new ideas and bug fixes. I believe the announcement is no longer a surprise since Google has long stated that it will make the Android source code available.

Popularity: 5% [?]

After three years of development, OpenOffice version 3.0 has been released and is set to challenge Microsoft Office.OpenOffice 3.0 suite includes several applications like a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation package (Impress), drawing (Draw), and database tools (Base). Multiple users can now view and edit the same document under OpenOffice version 3.0. The new version supports OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 file format and Office 2007 OOXML which means it can read Microsoft Office 2007 or 2008 .docx, .xlsx, .pptx or other new file formats.

OpenOffice is a FREE software and you can download a copy for Windows, Mac OS X, and other operating systems and languages.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The OpenSER project has been “renamed Kamailio“,  a hawaiian word (kama’ilio) which means talk or to converse.  If you go to the openser.org website, you’ll be redirected to kamailio.org. Starting with version 1.4 which is planned for release on August 7, 2008,  OpenSER will be called Kamailio.

So it’s about time to say goodbye to OpenSER and say hello to Kamailio, but let us also welsome OpenSIPS, a continuation of the OpenSER project.

Don’t be confused, Kamailio and OpenSIPS have taken the OpenSER code and pursue different goals and directions, this is called “forking” and it happens in an open-source project like OpenSER.

OpenSIPS (Open SIP Server) is a mature Open Source implementation of a SIP server. It is more than a SIP proxy/router as it includes application-level functionalities. As a SIP server, it is the core component of any SIP-based VoIP solution. OpenSIPS unifies voice, video, IM and presence services in a highly efficient way.

OpenSIPS has released OpenSIPS 1.4.0. with the following new functionalities:

• dialog profiling extension
• local route for internally generated requests
• dial plan / translation module
• general NAT traversal module (for non-invite signalling)
• peering and rate limit (traffic shaping) modules

OpenSIPS 1.4.0 has included the following enhancements:

• SRV load balancing (based on weights)
• nonce re-usage verification (safer authentication)
• bug fixing – code, specs and functionality bugs.

UPDATE (8/18/2008): http://www.openser.org is now being redirected to http://www.opensips.org

Popularity: 1% [?]