Is there an option in linux’s ethtool command that retrieves the current incoming bitrate or packets-per-second straight from the NIC? Answer Not per packets-per-second, but overall RX/TX. You could write a script around it: ethtool -S <interface> For example currently on my wifi nice: The same information could be extracted from: /sys/class/net//statistics/rx_packets: number of packets received /sys/class/net//statistics/tx_packets: number of packets