Network monitoring is a crucial aspect of maintaining the health and security of any IT infrastructure. It allows administrators to track network performance, identify potential issues, and ensure that resources are being used efficiently. While there are many tools available for network monitoring on various platforms, this article focuses on how to perform network monitoring on macOS, Apple's operating system for its line of computers.

macOS provides several built-in tools and utilities that can be used for network monitoring. These tools can help you track network traffic, diagnose connectivity issues, and monitor network performance. This article will guide you through some of the most effective methods for monitoring network activity on macOS.

Examples:

1. Using Activity Monitor: Activity Monitor is a built-in macOS application that provides a graphical interface for monitoring various system activities, including network usage.

   • Open Activity Monitor from the Applications > Utilities folder.
   • Click on the "Network" tab to view network activity.
   • You can see data sent and received, packets sent and received, and the processes using the most network resources.

2. Using Terminal Commands: macOS's Terminal provides powerful command-line tools for network monitoring.

   • nettop: This command provides a real-time, interactive display of network activity.

     sudo nettop

     This will display a list of network connections and their current status.

   • ping: This command checks the reachability of a host on an IP network.

     ping google.com

     This will continuously send packets to the specified host and display the response time.

   • netstat: This command displays network statistics and information about network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, and multicast memberships.

     netstat -i

     This will display a list of network interfaces and their statistics.

3. Using Wireshark: Wireshark is a third-party network protocol analyzer that can capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network.

   • Download and install Wireshark from the official website.
   • Open Wireshark and select the network interface you want to monitor.
   • Click on "Start" to begin capturing network traffic.
   • You can apply filters to focus on specific types of traffic or protocols.