How to control WiFi network in Linux

Is your WiFi connection too slow? Are you having intermittent network problems while surfing the web? Chances are, your wireless network is handling more traffic than usual. Fortunately, controlling a WiFi network in Linux is pretty easy. You can use Evillimiter – an open source application – to monitor and control your device’s bandwidth. This tutorial illustrates how to do this using a step-by-step approach.

What is Evillimiter?

Evillimiter is a free and open source monitoring tool that can limit bandwidth usage for devices connected to LAN. Evillimiter runs on Linux and Windows, and can work without admin access to the network.

Note: You should not use this tool on someone else’s network, avoid potential legal troubles.

How to install Evillimiter

You need to install Evillimiter before use. Fortunately, installation is very simple if you have the dependencies installed. It requires Python 3, which will be available by default on most Linux installations. To install Evillimiter, fire up Terminal and enter the commands below:

# Retrieve the source code

git clone https://github.com/bitbrute/evillimiter.git

# Navigate to source directory

cd evillimiter

# Install Evillimiter

sudo python3 setup.py install

How to control a WiFi network with Evillimiter

Once the installation is finished, you can begin monitoring the devices connected to your personal WiFi. To do this, first start the application by running the following command:

sudo evillimiter

Note that you will need sudo / root privileges to run and use Evillimiter. This is because it handles the network controller and needs access to low level kernel parameters. When you run Evillimiter for the first time, it will display some information about the WiFi network. This includes interface name, port IP, MAC and netmask.

The interactive dashboard is where you enter commands to monitor bandwidth usage. Evillimiter provides a number of commands for ease of control. You can see a list of available commands by typing ? or help in interactive dashboard.

(Main) >>> help

You need to scan your local network before you can monitor connected devices. Use Evillimiter’s scan command to do this.

(Main) >>> scan

This will scan all hosts connected to WiFi and report the number of active devices. Now, you can view the hosts and limit their bandwidth usage. Use command hosts to see all active hosts.

(Main) >>> hosts

This will display a list of devices connected to your WiFi network. Evillimiter will assign an ID to each device, displaying its IP and MAC information. A status field indicates whether bandwidth has been limited for one device.

Now, you can limit the bandwidth for a device using the command limit.

(Main) >>> limit 2 100kbit

This command limits the bandwidth of the second device (ID = 2) at 100 kilobits. You can limit multiple devices at once using a comma separated list.

(Main) >>> limit 2,3 50kbit

This command will limit the bandwidth of the second and third device to 50 kbit.

Bandwidth limits are set for both upload and download speeds. But you can also limit upload / download speeds separately. The next command limits the second device’s download speed to 100 kbit per second.

(Main) >>> limit 2 100kbit --download

You can also block the Internet connection for the host device using the block command. That way, you can control WiFi users directly from Terminal.

(Main) >>> block 2

This command will block the second device from using network resources. Use flag –upload and –download to block one-way traffic.

(Main) >>> block 2 --download

Let’s say you want to stream gaming sessions. You can block all other WiFi devices with the command below.

(Main) >>> block all

So far, this article has shown how to scan, limit and block devices using Evillimiter in Linux. However, don’t forget to free these devices after you’re done. Use command free followed by the host ID to do this.

(Main) >>> free 1,2,3
(Main) >>> free all

To exit the interactive console, type quit or exit in the command prompt.

(Main) >>> quit

It will exit the current session and return you to the Terminal.

Next up are two other features of Evillimiter. Because the interactive panel is colored, it may not run properly in some environments. You can install the necessary packages for color coding or use options –colorless in such cases.

sudo evillimiter --colorless

If you run this command in Terminal, it will initiate a colorless interactive session for Evillimiter. People can use this mode whenever they have a problem with the ASCII color.

Finally, optional -f Help solve problems with Linux iptables configuration or network parameters.

sudo evillimiter -f