cxnet

A real-time network throughput monitor for the terminal, built on SharpConsoleUI.

See your network breathe — live download/upload throughput as Braille waveforms, with session peaks, daily totals, per-interface selection, and a border that pulses with your transfer speed. All without leaving the terminal.

Watch. Measure. Flow.

Quick Start

Option 1: One-line install (Linux/macOS, no .NET required)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxnet/main/install.sh | bash
cxnet

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxnet/main/install.ps1 | iex

Option 2: Build from source (requires .NET 9)

git clone https://github.com/nickprotop/cxnet.git
cd cxnet
./build-and-install.sh
cxnet

Features

• Live download & upload throughput as high-resolution Braille waveforms
• Speed-driven border — the window outline shifts blue → cyan → green → yellow → red with your transfer rate
• Session peaks & daily totals, with automatic unit scaling (B/s → GB/s, or bits with b)
• Responsive display modes — hero, compact, mini, tiny — that switch automatically as you resize the terminal (or cycle with m)
• Translucent overlays — the theme picker and connections panel float over the live graphs, which keep animating through the panel (real alpha compositing)
• Theme-aware — press t for a swatch picker that live-previews as you arrow; the whole monitor (waveforms, stats, border, background) recolours to the selected theme, and Esc reverts
• Active connections panel — press n to see live TCP connections, grouped by peer, with the owning process where it can be resolved
• Per-interface monitoring with live switching (i); auto-selects the busiest interface
• Non-interactive modes — --json and --once for scripts and status bars
• Cross-platform — Linux, macOS, and Windows

Usage

cxnet                        # hero view, auto interface
cxnet --tiny                 # single-line mode for status bars
cxnet --mini                 # graphs-only mode
cxnet --compact              # compact layout
cxnet --interface eno1       # specify network interface
cxnet --refresh 500ms        # sampling interval (default 100ms)
cxnet --bits                 # display in bits/sec
cxnet --json                 # single JSON sample, then exit
cxnet --once                 # single plain-text sample, then exit
cxnet --version
cxnet --help

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
q / Ctrl+C	Quit
m	Cycle display modes
t	Theme picker
n	Active connections panel
r	Reset session peaks
i	Cycle network interfaces
b	Toggle bytes/sec ↔ bits/sec
+ / -	Adjust sampling interval

Building from Source

cxnet references SharpConsoleUI as a local project when the ConsoleEx repo is checked out as a sibling, and falls back to the published NuGet package otherwise — so it builds either way.

# Option A: with a local ConsoleEx checkout (sibling directory)
git clone https://github.com/nickprotop/ConsoleEx.git
git clone https://github.com/nickprotop/cxnet.git
cd cxnet && dotnet build cxnet/cxnet.csproj

# Option B: standalone (uses the NuGet package)
git clone https://github.com/nickprotop/cxnet.git
cd cxnet && dotnet build cxnet/cxnet.csproj

Architecture

cxnet/
├── cxnet/
│   ├── Program.cs          # CLI parsing → TUI or non-interactive (--json/--once)
│   ├── Sampling/           # NetworkSampler (RX/TX counters → bytes/sec) + NetSample
│   ├── State/              # MonitorState (history ring, peaks, totals, units)
│   └── Ui/                 # MonitorWindow, DisplayMode, Themes, ThemePicker, ProcessPanel, Format
├── install.sh / install.ps1
├── build-and-install.sh
└── publish.sh              # release cutter (version bump + tag)

Uninstall

# Linux / macOS
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxnet/main/uninstall.sh | bash

# Windows
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nickprotop/cxnet/main/uninstall.ps1 | iex

License

MIT © Nikolaos Protopapas