NETSTAT(1)

NAME
netstat - show network status

SYNOPSIS
netstat [-AaBln] [-f address_family] [-p protocol] [-M core] [-N system]
netstat [-bdeFgilmnqrstu] [-f address_family] [-p protocol] [-M core] [-N system] [-T rtable]
netstat [-bdehn] [-c count] [-I interface] [-M core] [-N system] [-w wait]
netstat [-v] [-M core] [-N system] -P pcbaddr
netstat [-s] [-M core] [-N system] [-p protocol]
netstat [-a] [-f address_family] [-p protocol] [-i | -I interface]
netstat [-W interface]

DESCRIPTION
The netstat command symbolically displays the contents of various network-related data structures. There are a number of output formats, depending on the options for the information presented.

The first form of the command displays a list of active sockets for each protocol. The second form presents the contents of one of the other network data structures according to the option selected. Using the third form, with a wait interval specified, netstat will continuously display the information regarding packet traffic on the configured network interfaces. The fourth form displays internals of the protocol control block (PCB) and the socket structure. The fifth form displays statistics about the named protocol. The sixth form displays per interface statistics for the specified address family. The final form displays per interface statistics for the specified wireless (802.11) device.

The options are as follows:

-A  Show the address of any protocol control blocks associated with sockets; useful for debugging e.g. with the -P flag. When used with the -r flag it shows the internal addresses of the routing table. Only the super-user can see these addresses; unprivileged users will see them as 0x0.

-a  With the default display, show the state of all sockets; normally sockets used by server processes are not shown.

-B  With the default display, show buffer sizes for TCP sockets. This includes the send window size, receive window size and congestion window size.

-b  With the interface display (options -I or -i), show bytes in and out, instead of packet statistics.

-c count
    Display count updates, then exit. This option has no effect unless -w is specified as well.

-d  With either the interface display (options -I or -i) or an interval (option -w), show only the number of dropped packets.

-e  With either the interface display (options -I or -i) or an interval (option -w), show only the number of errors on the interface.

-F  When showing routes, only show routes whose gateway are in the same address family as the destination.

-f address_family
    Limit statistics or address control block reports to those of the specified address_family.

    The following address families are recognized:
    Address Family | Constant | Description
    inet | AF_INET | IP Version 4
    inet6 | AF_INET6 | IP Version 6
    local | AF_UNIX | Alias for unix
    mpls | AF_MPLS | MPLS
    unix | AF_UNIX | Local to Host (i.e., pipes)

-h  Use unit suffixes to reduce the number of digits shown with the -b and -w options.

-g  Show information related to multicast (group address) routing. By default, show the IP multicast virtual-interface and routing tables. If the -s option is also present, show multicast routing statistics.

-I interface
    Show information about the specified interface; used with a wait interval as described below.

    If the -f address_family option (with the -s option) is present, show per-interface statistics on the given interface for the specified address_family.

-i  Show the state of interfaces which have been auto-configured (interfaces statically configured into a system but not located at boot-time are not shown).

    If the -f address_family option (with the -s option) is present, show per-interface statistics on all interfaces for the specified address_family.

-l  With the default display, show only listening sockets. With the -g option, display wider fields for the IPv6 multicast routing table "Origin" and "Group" columns.

-M core
    Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core instead of the running kernel.

-m  Show statistics recorded by the memory management routines (the network manages a private pool of memory buffers).

-N system
    Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the running kernel.

-n  Show network addresses as numbers (normally netstat interprets addresses and attempts to display them symbolically). This option may be used with any of the display formats.

-P pcbaddr
    Display the contents of the protocol control block (PCB) located at the kernel virtual address pcbaddr. PCB addresses can be obtained using the -A flag. When used with the -v option, also print socket, domain and protocol specific structures. Only the super-user can use the -P option.

    The -P option requires the ability to open /dev/kmem which may be restricted based upon the value of the kern.allowkmem sysctl(8).

-p protocol
    Restrict the output to protocol, which is either a well-known name for a protocol or an alias for it. Some protocol names and aliases are listed in the file /etc/protocols. The program will complain if protocol is unknown. If the -s option is specified, the per-protocol statistics are displayed. Otherwise the states of the matching sockets are shown.

-q  Only show interfaces that have seen packets (or bytes if -b is specified).

-r  Show the routing tables. The output is explained in more detail below. If the -s option is also specified, show routing statistics instead. When used with the -v option, also print routing labels.

-s  Show per-protocol statistics. If this option is repeated, counters with a value of zero are suppressed.

-T rtable
    Select an alternate routing table to query. The default is to use the current routing table.

-t  With the -i option, display the current value of the watchdog timer function.

-u  Limit statistics or address control block reports to the AF_UNIX address family.

-v  Show extra (verbose) detail for the routing tables (-r), or avoid truncation of long addresses. When used with the -P option, also print socket, domain and protocol specific structures.

-W interface
    (IEEE 802.11 devices only) Show per-interface IEEE 802.11 wireless statistics.

-w wait
    Show network interface statistics at intervals of wait seconds.

The default display, for active sockets, shows the local and remote addresses, send and receive queue sizes (in bytes), protocol, and the internal state of the protocol.

Address formats are of the form “host.port” or “network.port” if a socket's address specifies a network but no specific host address. When known, the host addresses are displayed symbolically according to the hosts(5) database. If a symbolic name for an address is unknown, or if the -n option is specified, the address is printed numerically, according to the address family.

For more information regarding the Internet “dot format”, refer to inet_ntop(3). Unspecified or “wildcard” addresses and ports appear as a single ‘*’. If a local port number is registered as being in use for RPC by portmap(8), its RPC service name or RPC service number will be printed in “[]” immediately after the port number.

The interface display provides a table of cumulative statistics regarding packets transferred, errors, and collisions. The network addresses of the interface and the maximum transmission unit (MTU) are also displayed.

The routing table display indicates the available routes and their status. Each route consists of a destination host or network and a gateway to use in forwarding packets. If the destination is a network in numeric format, the netmask (in /24 style format) is appended. The flags field shows a collection of information about the route stored as binary choices. The individual flags are discussed in more detail in the route(8) and route(4) manual pages.

The mapping between letters and flags is:
1 | RTF_PROTO1 | Protocol specific routing flag #1.
2 | RTF_PROTO2 | Protocol specific routing flag #2.
3 | RTF_PROTO3 | Protocol specific routing flag #3.
B | RTF_BLACKHOLE | Just discard pkts (during updates).
b | RTF_BROADCAST | Correspond to a local broadcast address.
C | RTF_CLONING | Generate new routes on use.
c | RTF_CLONED | Cloned routes (generated from RTF_CLONING).
D | RTF_DYNAMIC | Created dynamically (by redirect).
d | RTF_DONE | Completed (for routing messages only).
G | RTF_GATEWAY | Destination requires forwarding by intermediary.
H | RTF_HOST | Host entry (net otherwise).
h | RTF_CACHED | Referenced by gateway route.
L | RTF_LLINFO | Valid protocol to link address translation.
l | RTF_LOCAL | Correspond to a local address.
M | RTF_MODIFIED | Modified dynamically (by redirect).
m | RTF_MULTICAST | Correspond to a multicast address.
n | RTF_CONNECTED | Interface route.
P | RTF_MPATH | Multipath route.
R | RTF_REJECT | Host or net unreachable.
S | RTF_STATIC | Manually added.
T | RTF_MPLS | MPLS route.
U | RTF_UP | Route usable.

Direct routes are created for each interface attached to the local host; the gateway field for such entries shows the address of the outgoing interface. The refcnt field gives the current number of active uses of the route. Connection oriented protocols normally hold on to a single route for the duration of a connection while connectionless protocols obtain a route while sending to the same destination. The use field provides a count of the number of packets sent using that route. The MTU entry shows the MTU associated with that route. This MTU value is used as the basis for the TCP maximum segment size (MSS). The ‘L’ flag appended to the MTU value indicates that the value is locked, and that path MTU discovery is turned off for that route. A ‘-’ indicates that the MTU for this route has not been set, and a default TCP maximum segment size will be used. The interface entry indicates the network interface utilized for the route.

When netstat is invoked with the -w option and a wait interval argument, it displays a running count of statistics related to network interfaces. An obsolescent version of this option used a numeric parameter with no option, and is currently supported for backward compatibility. This display consists of a column for the primary interface (the first interface found during autoconfiguration) and a column summarizing information for all interfaces. The primary interface may be replaced with another interface with the -I option. The first line of each screen of information contains a summary since the system was last rebooted. Subsequent lines of output show values accumulated over the preceding interval.

SEE ALSO
fstat(1), nfsstat(1), ps(1), systat(1), tcpbench(1), top(1), inet_ntop(3), netintro(4), route(4), hosts(5), protocols(5), services(5), iostat(8), portmap(8), pstat(8), route(8), tcpdrop(8), trpt(8), vmstat(8)

HISTORY
The netstat command appeared in 4.2BSD. IPv6 support was added by the WIDE/KAME project.

BUGS
The notion of errors is ill-defined.