Linux, desperate, how can I find a particular website that sucks all my bandwidth?

Aug 09, 2024 Last reply: 1 year ago 7 Replies
O

I have a mobile broadband contract with Spusu of only 5GB data per month.



I use my Android phone for tethering and I have disabled all apps from accessing mobile data, so the data gets only used by my laptop, running Debian Bookworm, when it connects to the Android hotspot.



I basically use the same sites every days (online translators). I use Thunderbird for email and Usenet only from public wifi, so this doesn't go into my data allowance. Same thing for the occasional Youtube videos.



Ma daily data has jumped from around 50MB a day to 250-300MB a day!



I have installed an extension on Firefox that blocks all images, frames, movies, etc. I still get these dreaded 250 MB a day.



Is there a program that I can run on Linux that checks at what time I have peaks of data?



I have to rule out (I hope) viruses, trojan horses, etc, as this is Linux and not Windows, but you never know.



I don't have any automated updaters of any kind. Firefox has been configured not to update itself, same thing for plugins.



I have disabled Firefox memory cache and enabled disk cache to save data.



So what is it?



Thanks.


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T

'iftop' will show you live updates of traffic to specific hosts. 'nethogs' will show how much bandwidth each process is taking.

I'm not sure if there's a way to combine the statistics (host X is causing traffic consumed by application Y, over the last day) but trying them both together might give some clues.

I'm sure there are better tools out there.

Theo

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C

I've cross-posted to uk.comp.os.linux as this is more of a linux question.

Nowadays lots of software has their own updaters. Linux is better than most as updates go via the repo mostly. Have you checked the package manager isn't downloading updates in the background?

Same on your phone? Are you able to disable automatic downloads of OS updates. I believe the play store does this transparently

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O

Le 09/08/2024 à 19:43, Chris a écrit :

Yes, all automatic updates were disabled long ago both on Debian and on Android.

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P

Since it is only 250MB of data per day, capture an entire day of traffic with Wireshark. Don't forget to turn on the network translation before doing the trace, so the network addresses are symbolic.

Name Resolution Resolve MAC addresses Translate MAC addresses into names. Resolve network names Translate network addresses into names. <=== at least this one Resolve transport names Translate transport names (port numbers).

I've seen claims it's possible to capture traffic with program names, I've not been able to find the details.

In terms of things that update, Firefox and Chrome might use the Update Manager for their updates. But things like Snap and Flatpak log into home base every day, to check version numbers. The flatpak download seemed particularly long.

Paul

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O

You overestimate me. Last time I used Wireshark was circa 2007 and I was paid good money to do that and I wasn't very good at it.

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T

may i ask why such an economical use of the internet?

-- thenoo

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