netraf-pulse: Show your network traffic via P*U*L*S*E of keyboard LEDs

Introduction

This is a toy utility which could show your network traffic via pulse of keyboard LEDs, run it with a network interface name as command line argument to make your LEDs go to work, flashing in time with the flow of network packets to and from that network interface.

Usage

This utility should run under root privilege, you can type sudo ./netraf_pulse iface to get it work. Certainly you should use the name of network interface you want to monitor to replace that “iface”, for example, eth0.

The blinking speed of CapsLock LED and ScrollLock LED indicates incoming and outgoing network traffic, NumLock LED would also be brought up if the overall (recv + transmit) network packet flow is above a certain threshold (100 KB/s).

Note

The idea of this utility is inspired by FLOYD, which could blink PC keyboard LED with an interval which varies depending upon the system’s load average.