How to Install Ntopng on Ubuntu 16.04

Introduction

Ntopng is an open source tool used to monitor different network protocols on your servers. It is the next generation version of the original Ntop. Ntopng provides a user friendly web interface to get traffic information and the system network status.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install Ntopng on Ubuntu 16.04.

Prerequisites

• A newly deployed Vultr Ubuntu 16.04 server instance.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges setup on your server.

Step 1: Update the system

Before starting, update the system to the latest stable status using the following commands:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo shutdown -r now

After the reboot, use the sudo user to log in.

Step 2: Installing Ntopng

A ntopng package is available in the Ubuntu 16.04 repository. You can easily install it by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install ntopng

Step 3: Configuring Ntopng

The configuration file is located at /etc/ntopng.conf.

sudo nano /etc/ntopng.conf

Change the settings in the file as needed:

# DO NOT REMOVE the following option, required for daemonization.
-e=

# * Interfaces to sniff on: one interface per line, prefix with -i=
# If none is specified, ntopng will try to auto-detect the best interface.

-i=eth0

# * Port on which ntopng will listen for the web-UI.
-w=3000

Save the file when you are finished. Then, restart the ntopng service:

sudo systemctl restart ntopng

To see all available interfaces and options, use the ntopng -h option:

sudo ntopng -h

Step 4: Firewall updates

If you’re running a firewall such as ufw, you’ll need to open port 3000 for Ntopng.

sudo ufw allow 3000

Step 5: Testing Ntopng

It’s time to test Ntopng. Open your favorite web browser and type the URL http://your-server-ip:3000. If you followed the instructions correctly, you will see the Ntopng login page. For the first login, you can use username admin and password admin to log into Ntopng.

Your Ntopng application is ready for use.