What is RouteViewNet?
RouteViewNet watches the two things that make a computer feel slow or broken: your internet connection and your computer's memory.
Instead of asking you to run mysterious terminal commands when the Wi-Fi acts up, RouteViewNet quietly runs small tests in the background, around the clock:
- Can I reach the router? How fast does it answer?
- Can I reach the internet beyond the router?
- How long do website-name lookups take?
- How much data is flowing in and out?
- How much memory is in use, and which programs are using it?
It turns all of that into one health score from 0 to 100, a short list of alerts when something is wrong, and a Troubleshoot page that tells you where the problem probably is and what to try.
Seven words worth knowing
You do not need to memorize these. The app explains itself as you go.
Router or gateway
The box in your home that your internet comes through. Your computer talks to the router; the router talks to the world.
DNS
The internet's address book. It turns a name like wikipedia.org into a numeric address. Slow DNS makes every site feel slow to start.
Download / Upload
Download is data coming into your computer. Upload is data going out, such as sending photos or joining a video call.
Latency or ping
How long a round trip takes, in milliseconds. Under 20 ms feels instant; a few hundred ms feels laggy. Lower is better.
Packet loss
Data travels in small parcels. Five percent loss means 1 in 20 parcels never arrived and had to be sent again.
Memory RAM
Your computer's working desk. Programs spread out their papers on it while running. When the desk is full, everything slows down.
Swap
Emergency overflow on the disk. The disk is much slower than memory, so heavy swap use is a classic reason a computer feels sluggish.
One more: the monitor, technically called a daemon, is the invisible background helper that does all the measuring. The window is only a viewer.
Installing and opening it
RouteViewNet runs on Ubuntu and other Debian-style Linux systems. Pick whichever installation method feels most comfortable.
The easy way: one command
Open a terminal, paste this line, and press Enter:
$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kaanyinaele/routeviewnet/main/install.sh | sudo shIt finds the newest release, downloads it, and installs it. sudo asks for your password because installing software affects the whole computer. If you prefer to inspect scripts first, open the install.sh link in a browser; it is short and readable.
The builder's way
If you want to compile RouteViewNet yourself, follow the instructions in the project README. This path requires developer tools and is intended for contributors and packagers.
Whichever way you choose, the background monitor starts immediately and starts itself after every reboot. Updating later uses the same method again, and your settings and history survive.
For everyday use, open RouteViewNet from your applications menu. You can also visit http://localhost:4545 in a browser on the same computer. “Localhost” means this computer, so the address only works on the machine itself.
The window and the background monitor
RouteViewNet has two parts. Closing one never stops the other.
The monitor
An invisible background service that takes measurements every few seconds and saves them locally.
The window
The desktop app only shows what the monitor collected. Closing it never stops monitoring.
- Open the window once a week or once a month; the history will still be there.
- The monitor reports its own memory use on the System page.
- Seven days of measurements are kept by default; older records are removed automatically.
A tour of the app
Every dashboard card has a small question mark beside its title. Hover it, or reach it with the Tab key, for a short explanation.
Overview: “Is everything okay?”
The page to glance at. It combines the health score, current download and upload speed, devices, open alerts, the Gateway / Internet / DNS checks, memory, processor load, daemon memory, and recent events.
- 90 or higher is healthy, 60 to 89 is degraded, and below 60 is critical.
- The three connection checks show a status and response time. Which one fails tells you where the problem lives.
- The small score graph covers the last 24 hours, so changes are easy to spot.
Traffic: “How much data is flowing?”
Choose a window from 15 minutes to 7 days to chart download and upload speed. Each network connection gets its own card; the one marked primary carries internet traffic.
Data usage by app shows the five largest users, with a view of every app that used at least 20 MB. It counts direct TCP connections, so some video calls and games are not included. Treat the figures as a strong estimate, not an invoice.
Errors and drops are network hiccups. A few are normal; numbers that keep climbing can point to weak Wi-Fi, a bad cable, or an overloaded connection.
Devices: “What's on my network?”
See devices your computer recently communicated with, including their address, discoverable name, and first and last seen times.
- Nickname: assign a familiar name such as “Kitchen TV”.
- Trust: mark devices you know. New devices remain visibly untrusted and raise a gentle alert.
This is not a full network scan. A quiet device that never talks to your computer may not appear.
Internet Health: “How good is my connection?”
RouteViewNet sends tiny test messages to your router and two dependable public addresses. Each card shows the latest response time and packet loss. The latency chart reveals lag spikes and failed tests; DNS rows show how long test website lookups take.
If a card says via tcp, the usual test message was unavailable and RouteViewNet used a fallback. The result is still meaningful.
System: “Is my computer itself okay?”
- Memory used excludes spare memory Linux temporarily borrows for speed.
- Swap used exposes slow disk overflow caused by memory pressure.
- Load average shows processor demand over 1, 5, and 15 minutes beside your core count.
- Top memory consumers names the programs using the most memory right now.
Alerts: “What went wrong, and when?”
Every detected problem becomes an alert with a plain-English message and timestamps. Alerts resolve themselves after recovery. A problem must appear twice to open and look healthy twice to close, so a single brief blip does not cry wolf.
Troubleshoot: “Just tell me what to do.”
This page combines all open alerts into a one-line likely diagnosis, the evidence behind it, and a short ordered list of actions. It updates automatically as conditions change.
Settings: “Tune it, or leave it alone.”
The defaults are sensible. Settings let you change measurement intervals and targets, alert sensitivity, collectors, data retention, and privacy. Changes apply when saved; options that need a restart say so.
The health score, explained
The score starts at 100 and loses points for each currently open problem. Bigger problems cost more.
| Problem | Points lost |
|---|---|
| Router unreachable | −40 |
| Internet unreachable | −30 |
| Noticeable packet loss | −15 |
| Website-name lookups failing | −20 |
| Website-name lookups slow | −10 |
| A network connection went down | −15 |
| Network hiccups increasing | −10 |
| Memory nearly full | −15 |
| Heavy swap use | −10 |
| Processor overloaded | −10 |
| Unusual traffic spike | −5 |
Related problems are capped so one bad area cannot zero the score by itself. The same problem only counts once, and every deduction is explained on the Troubleshoot page.
“My internet is slow”: reading the three lights
Gateway, Internet, and DNS form a built-in process of elimination.
The problem is inside your home
Your computer cannot reach the router. Move closer, check cables, or restart the router. Your provider is probably innocent.
The provider side is unreachable
Your router answers, but nothing beyond it does. Restart the router and modem; if it persists, check your provider's status.
The address book is delaying pages
You are connected, but website-name lookups are slow or failing. The Troubleshoot page suggests concrete next steps.
The network may not be the problem
Check the System page. Nearly full memory or heavy swap can make a healthy connection feel slow.
Your privacy and your data
Nothing leaves your computer. No account, no telemetry, no cloud.
- One local database
Measurements live under
/var/lib/routeviewnet/. Records older than 7 days are deleted automatically unless you change retention. - Commands stay private by default
Program names are stored, but full launch commands are not because they can contain passwords and secrets.
- Localhost only
The dashboard answers only on this computer. Opening it to your home network is an explicit advanced setting with a persistent warning.
Everyday tasks
You should not need these often, but each task is one terminal command.
Pause until next boot
sudo systemctl stop routeviewnetdResume monitoring
sudo systemctl start routeviewnetdDisable at boot
sudo systemctl disable routeviewnetdCheck monitor status
systemctl status routeviewnetdUpdate and keep data
Repeat the method you installed with. Settings and history survive either option.
Uninstall and keep data
sudo dpkg -r routeviewnetUninstall and erase everything
sudo dpkg -P routeviewnetQuestions people ask
Does it slow down my computer or use up my internet?
No. Test messages are tiny, and the monitor typically uses less memory than one browser tab. The System page lets you verify its footprint.
Do I need to keep the window open?
No. The monitor runs in the background. The window is only a viewer.
Why does “Devices seen” miss some devices?
It lists devices this computer recently exchanged messages with. Quiet devices may not appear because RouteViewNet does not aggressively scan your network.
The memory number looks scary. Is 70% bad?
Usually not. Linux uses spare memory to improve speed and returns it when needed. Worry when memory stays near 100% and swap keeps growing.
What are 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8?
Dependable public addresses run by Cloudflare and Google, commonly used to check whether the wider internet is reachable. You can change them in Settings.
Can I check my computer from my phone?
Not by default. You can open the dashboard to your home network in Settings, but version 1 has no password protection, so only do this on a trusted network.
Why is an alert still open after the problem stopped?
Give it a few seconds. Alerts clear after the measurement looks healthy twice in a row.
What RouteViewNet cannot do yet
Current limits of version 1.
- 01
It monitors this computer's view of the network, not the whole network. It cannot tell you that your phone's Wi-Fi is weak.
- 02
Device discovery misses devices that never talk to this computer and does not list IPv6-only neighbors.
- 03
Processor coverage is the overall load number. It names memory-heavy programs, not processor-heavy ones.
- 04
Per-app usage counts direct TCP connections only. Many video calls and some games are not attributed.
- 05
There is no password protection or encrypted access, which is why the dashboard stays local by default.
- 06
Version 1 supports Linux and Debian-style packages only.