iftop - how to select a wireless USB device

Question

I want to monitor my internet traffic, thinking of switching ISPs. I want to monitor and log my traffic. iftop looks like a good option, correct me if I'm wrong.

The problem is that my machine is using a USB wireless card. iftop will default to eth0. What command do I use to listen in on my wireless USB card traffic or what command do I use to find the device name of my wireless card?

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04, here is my lspci output:

alan@alan-ubuntu:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000V Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev b1)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x8 Port 2-3 (rev b1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express x4 Port 3 (rev b1)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset DMA Engine (rev b1)
00:10.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev b1)
00:10.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev b1)
00:10.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FSB Registers (rev b1)
00:11.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved Registers (rev b1)
00:13.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved Registers (rev b1)
00:15.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD Registers (rev b1)
00:16.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD Registers (rev b1)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 09)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d9)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset SATA IDE Controller (rev 09)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Upstream Port (rev 01)
01:00.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev 01)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E1 (rev 01)
02:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express Downstream Port E3 (rev 01)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G92 [GeForce 8800 GT] (rev a2)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
04:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
08:01.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
08:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI ES1000 (rev 02)

Answer 1

iftop -i wlan0 should get you what you need.

ifconfig -a will show you all interfaces on your system. Typically wireless interfaces are wlan0, wlan1, etc.

iftop: display bandwidth usage on an interface by host

Synopsis: iftop -h | [-npblNBP] [-i interface] [-f filter code]
                               [-F net/mask] [-G net6/mask6]

   -h                  display this message
   -n                  don't do hostname lookups
   -N                  don't convert port numbers to services
   -p                  run in promiscuous mode (show traffic between other
                       hosts on the same network segment)
   -b                  don't display a bar graph of traffic
   -B                  Display bandwidth in bytes
   -i interface        listen on named interface
   -f filter code      use filter code to select packets to count
                       (default: none, but only IP packets are counted)
   -F net/mask         show traffic flows in/out of IPv4 network
   -G net6/mask6       show traffic flows in/out of IPv6 network
   -l                  display and count link-local IPv6 traffic (default: off)
   -P                  show ports as well as hosts
   -m limit            sets the upper limit for the bandwidth scale
   -c config file      specifies an alternative configuration file

iftop, version 1.0pre2