tcptrack is a libpcap TUI that lists live TCP connections like top. It is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Accidental sysadmins land on tcptrack because tcptrack -i eth0 shows ESTABLISHED rows without a dashboard. Then disk is at 91%, nginx dies, and last night's socket table does not say what to run. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a tcptrack bitrate cell.
Tink is the other job: detect the issue on the machine, say why it happened in plain English, propose the command, and run it only after you approve. Keep using tcptrack if you already want a live TCP table on an SSH session. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | tcptrack |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | apt/yum install tcptrack, then tcptrack -i eth0 every time a socket looks busy |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | Live TCP rows: src/dst, state, and bitrate, only while the TUI is open |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Open source. You still pay the person who SSHs in after the outage |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | Which interface to sniff, BPF filters, and whether anyone was watching when the flood started |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | libpcap TCP table. tcptrack does not parse auth.log or propose a command |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | Interface, filter expression, and whether you left tcptrack running in tmux |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | No — you read connection rows yourself |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Monitoring only — tcptrack cannot drop the flood, restart nginx, or rotate a cert |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | None by default — tcptrack is a live table; paging is extra |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Live sockets only — tcptrack does not forecast fill time or a quiet NIC going bad later |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Not included — tcptrack does not read host auth.log or journald |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | If the host is down you cannot SSH into tcptrack either |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | Not included — tcptrack has no customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | Not included — a socket table is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire something else into PagerDuty |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | SSH + tcptrack. No mechanic you text when /var filled |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Low to launch; higher to map an ESTABLISHED row to the process that filled the disk |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Operators who already want a live TCP table and will still SSH in when the box is sick |
Keep using tcptrack when you already want that exact job:
The package is easy to install. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who opens tcptrack after the outage, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet socket table will not type.
No SSH homework. No silent host. One command install.
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