NetWatch

Network diagnostics in your terminal.

netwatch --view dense. Four boxes, no chrome, every keybind on a border. Download grows up from the axis, upload grows down.

One binary, no config. sudo netwatch and you have live capture with L7 decode, process attribution where available, and a diagnostic engine that opens an issue when a learned baseline breaks and closes it when the fix holds.

Install

brew install netwatch                 # macOS / Linux
scoop install netwatch                # Windows (needs Npcap)
cargo binstall netwatch-tui           # prebuilt binary, anywhere with Rust
paru -S netwatch-tui                  # Arch (AUR)
nix-shell -p netwatch                 # NixOS / Nix
conda install -c conda-forge netwatch # conda / mamba (Linux, macOS)

Debian / Ubuntu (apt repository):

curl -fsSL https://matthart1983.github.io/netwatch/apt/netwatch.gpg \
  | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/netwatch.gpg >/dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/netwatch.gpg] \
https://matthart1983.github.io/netwatch/apt stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/netwatch.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install netwatch

Fedora: sudo dnf copr enable matthart1983/netwatch && sudo dnf install netwatch

Container: docker run --rm -it --net=host --pid=host --cap-add=NET_RAW ghcr.io/matthart1983/netwatch

Binaries for macOS, Linux (x86_64, aarch64, armv5te), FreeBSD (x86_64) and Windows are on the releases page, with .deb, .rpm, checksums and signed provenance. The Linux builds are static and need nothing installed; Windows needs Npcap.

FreeBSD is best-effort. netwatch-freebsd-x86_64 is built on FreeBSD 13.5 and dynamically links the base system's libc and libpcap, so it needs FreeBSD 13 or newer (it cannot be static). On anything older, build from source with cargo install netwatch-tui. Verifying a download · every channel.

Run

netwatch              # interfaces, connections, config. No privileges.
sudo netwatch         # enables capture where elevated access is required
netwatch --lite       # one 80x24 screen
netwatch --view dense # four boxes, 130x44 or larger

1 to 9 and 0 switch tabs, V cycles the three views, ? shows every key. To run without sudo on Linux, grant the capabilities once: sudo setcap 'cap_net_raw,cap_bpf,cap_perfmon+eip' "$(which netwatch)" (why and when to repeat it).

Without the TUI

netwatch doctor                          # what netwatch can see on this host, and why not
netwatch diagnose run --budget 30s       # one bounded diagnosis; exit 0 clean, 1 issue, 2 no evidence
netwatch diagnose run --format json      # the same, for scripts
netwatch daemon --metrics                # headless; Prometheus /metrics on 127.0.0.1:9464
netwatch --demo                          # replay a recorded Diagnose incident, no capture needed

daemon runs the same collectors with no screen; a systemd unit and a launchd agent ship with it, and Prometheus export lists the metrics. --remote URL with NETWATCH_API_KEY streams snapshots to a backend you run; it is experimental and its wire format may change. Every command and flag.

The tabs

#	Tab	Shows
1	Dashboard	Latency tiles, mirrored throughput, the link carrying it, connections rolled up per process
2	Connections	Every socket with process, PID, state, GeoIP, RTT, retransmits
3	Interfaces	Addresses, MTU, rates, errors, drops
4	Packets	Live decode, TLS 1.3 decryption, JA4, stream tracking, display filters, PCAP export
5	Stats	Protocol breakdown and handshake-timing histogram
6	Topology	Machine, gateway, DNS, top hosts, traceroute
7	Timeline	Connections by TCP state, with alerts
8	Processes	Bandwidth per process
9	Diagnose	Issue, cause, fix, verified close. report.md from the same objects
0	Egress	Learned destinations, promoted policy, drift

Every keybinding, display filters, decoders, themes, configuration.

Views

V cycles all three without a restart; the collectors keep running.

View	Size	For
Full	any	The ten tabs above
Lite (--lite)	80x24	An SSH session to a Pi, or a tmux split
Dense (--view dense)	130x44+	The hero image: four boxes, braille throughput, kernel TCP detail

Why they look like this.

Docs