Linux C++: Accessing network statistics

Question

I am developing a network statistic program in C++ for Linux.

I would like to access some statistical information about the current network connection.

E.g.:

• packet loss,
• bytes transferred (upload and download),
• current network load (upload and download),

Any idea how to access this kind of information?

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so, i have been trying to accomplish my objective using de /proc, we can find alot of information, but there is some missing information i need. I am thinking in developing a simple C++ promiscuous application, using LibPcap, that captures the network traffic i need and starts taking the metrics i want.

The Con is that i think this is going to be CPU intensive, at least more then needed ... Any thoughts about this ?

Answer 1

All this information are spread into /proc/net files (updated by kernel). The most important file is /proc/net/netstat. Into to /proc/net/dev there are device statistics. You could open and parse.