Gfilui

On vnstat I can get the month, day, hour or top 10 days network usage. Is there anyway that I can get the network usage from specific date on the terminal? by vnstat or another tool?

Edit:

I want to have the usage from specific date to the current date or between two dates not only a specific date.

vnStat supports date and time range specific queries for all list outputs starting from version 2.0 (currently available as beta). That version also allows free configuration of data retention durations so there's no more hardcoded 30 day limit for daily data. See the change notes and the GitHub repository for more details.

$ vnstat --days --begin 2018-04-02 --end 2018-04-06

 em1 / daily

 day rx | tx | total
-------------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------
 2018-04-02 4.88 GB | 1.95 GB | 6.83 GB %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%:::::::
 2018-04-03 3.56 GB | 1.09 GB | 4.66 GB %%%%%%%%%%%%::::
 2018-04-04 3.91 GB | 2.07 GB | 5.99 GB %%%%%%%%%%%%%%:::::::
 2018-04-05 2.61 GB | 1.63 GB | 4.24 GB %%%%%%%%%:::::
 2018-04-06 3.29 GB | 1.43 GB | 4.72 GB %%%%%%%%%%%:::::
-------------------------+-------------+---------------------------------------
 sum of 5 18.25 GB | 8.17 GB | 26.43 GB

Copy the code below into a file. I'm using ~/bin/vnstat-hist.sh. After saving the file mark it as executable using:

chmod a+x ~/bin/vnstat.sh

To run the script call it with the parameter for number of days. For example for today use vnstat-hist.sh 1. For last five days (including today) use:

$ vnstat-hist.sh 5
vnstat -d 5 day summary
 2018-04-27 6.21 GiB | 1.83 GiB | 8.04 GiB | 780.45 kbit/s
 2018-04-28 5.97 GiB | 1.05 GiB | 7.02 GiB | 681.20 kbit/s
 2018-04-29 8.27 GiB | 1.47 GiB | 9.74 GiB | 945.40 kbit/s
 2018-04-30 4.09 GiB | 1.35 GiB | 5.44 GiB | 527.97 kbit/s
 2018-05-01 1.36 GiB | 1.13 GiB | 2.49 GiB | 315.40 kbit/s
Total:32.73

vnstat-hist.sh Bash script

Note this program can be shorter but hopefully the design is easier to follow for novices.

#!/bin/bash

# NAME: vnstat-hist.sh
# PATH: $HOME/bin
# DESC: Written for AU Q&A: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1030345/get-network-usage-from-specific-date-on-terminal/1030399?noredirect=1#comment1675801_1030399
# Get total vnStat bytes from x days ago to today.
# Parameter 1 = number of days: 1= today, 2= yesterday + today, etc.

# DATE: May 1, 2018.

re='^[0-9]+$'
if ! [[ $1 =~ $re ]] ; then
 echo "Error: Parameter 1 must be number of days" >&2; exit 1
fi

# Get body of vnstat -d into file, ie strip headings and total lines
# First get count of all lines, then delete 2 total lines & 5 heading lines

vnstat -d > /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt
NumLines=$(cat /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt | wc -l)
NumLines=$(( NumLines - 2))
cat /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt | head -n $NumLines > /tmp/vnstat-hist2.txt
NumLines=$(( NumLines - 5))
cat /tmp/vnstat-hist2.txt | tail -n $NumLines > /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt

MaxDays=$(cat /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt | wc -l)

DayCount="$1"
(( $DayCount > $MaxDays )) && DayCount=$MaxDays
cat /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt | tail -n $DayCount > /tmp/vnstat-hist2.txt
echo "vnstat -d $DayCount day summary"
awk 'sum+=$8; END print "Total:" sum 1' /tmp/vnstat-hist2.txt

# Clean up temp files
rm -f /tmp/vnstat-hist.txt
rm -f /tmp/vnstat-hist2.txt

exit 0