How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Network Monitor (2026)

A Raspberry Pi makes an excellent low-cost, low-power network monitor that runs 24/7 without significantly affecting your electricity bill. Using free tools like Pi-hole, Nagios, Zabbix or ntopng, you can monitor network traffic, detect devices, track bandwidth usage and get alerts when services go down. This guide covers how to set up a Raspberry Pi as a network monitor in 2026.

What You Need

• Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB RAM minimum, 4GB recommended) or Raspberry Pi 5
• MicroSD card — 16GB minimum, 32GB recommended
• Power supply — official Raspberry Pi power supply recommended
• Ethernet cable — wired connection strongly recommended for network monitoring
• Raspberry Pi OS Lite (headless, no desktop) — download from raspberrypi.com

Step 1 — Install Raspberry Pi OS

1. Download Raspberry Pi Imager from raspberrypi.com
2. Insert your microSD card and open Raspberry Pi Imager
3. Select Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit) as the operating system
4. Click the gear icon to configure: set hostname, enable SSH, set username and password, configure WiFi if needed
5. Write to the microSD card
6. Insert into your Pi, connect ethernet and power on
7. SSH in: ssh [email protected]

Step 2 — Initial Setup

# Update and upgrade
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Set a static IP (recommended for a monitoring device)
sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf

# Add these lines at the bottom:
# interface eth0
# static ip_address=192.168.1.50/24
# static routers=192.168.1.1
# static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1 8.8.8.8

Option A — Pi-hole (DNS-Based Network Monitor and Ad Blocker)

Pi-hole is the most popular Raspberry Pi network tool. It acts as a DNS server for your network, blocking ads and tracking at the DNS level and providing a dashboard showing all DNS queries, blocked domains and per-device statistics.

# Install Pi-hole
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

# After installation, access the dashboard at:
# http://192.168.1.50/admin

# Set all devices to use your Pi as DNS server
# Either manually per-device or via your router's DHCP settings

Option B — Zabbix (Full Network Monitoring)

Zabbix is a full enterprise-grade monitoring platform that can monitor servers, network devices, services and applications. It is free, open source and runs well on a Raspberry Pi 4 for home or small office environments.

# Install Zabbix on Raspberry Pi
wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.4/raspbian/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_6.4-1+debian12_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_6.4-1+debian12_all.deb
sudo apt update
sudo apt install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-apache-conf zabbix-sql-scripts zabbix-agent -y

Option C — ntopng (Real-Time Traffic Analysis)

ntopng provides real-time network traffic analysis showing which devices are using the most bandwidth, what protocols are in use and detecting unusual traffic patterns. The community edition is free.

# Install ntopng on Raspberry Pi
sudo apt install ntopng -y
sudo systemctl enable ntopng
sudo systemctl start ntopng

# Access dashboard at http://your-pi-ip:3000
# Default credentials: admin/admin

Option D — Uptime Kuma (Service Monitoring and Alerts)

Uptime Kuma is a self-hosted monitoring tool similar to Uptime Robot. It monitors websites, services and ports and sends alerts via email, Slack, Telegram and many other channels when something goes down.

# Install Uptime Kuma via Docker
sudo apt install docker.io -y
sudo docker run -d --restart=always -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data --name uptime-kuma louislam/uptime-kuma:1

# Access at http://your-pi-ip:3001

Frequently Asked Questions

About The Author

Andrew Armstrong

Andrew Armstrong is a UK-based IT professional with 26+ years of hands-on experience in Windows, Windows Server, SCCM/ConfigMgr, Active Directory, PowerShell, and enterprise infrastructure. He founded TechyGeeksHome in 2010 and has published over 1,500 practical guides covering real-world IT problems and solutions. When not solving IT problems, Andrew develops free Windows utilities including Ultimate Settings Panel, which has been downloaded over 850,000 times.

See author's posts