How does traffic(1) figure out the load?

[Edward Dergharapetian]

Hi--

Does anyone out there know exactly how traffic(1) figures out what the
load on the ethernet is?  I've looked at the ether(3) rpc calls and the
structures they return, but couldn't find any values indicating the load
(or percentage thereof).  The code for traffic is almost impossible to
decipher.  Is it making assumptions about the capacity of the ethernet? We
would like to use the same algorithm to monitor the load on our network,
but do it in batch (i.e.: through crontab or a daemon).  Traffic is too
interactive for this purpose.  Also let me know if such a tool already
exist.  Please direct your responses to the e-mail address below.  Thanks
for your help,

edward.

Edward Dergharapetian                                    (213) 206-6067
UCLA Mathematics Dept.      405 Hilgard Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555
UUCP:.!{rutgers,ucbvax,sdcrdcf,{hao!cepu}}!ucla-cs!math.ucla.edu!edward
ARPA: edward at math.ucla.edu        BITNET: edward%math.ucla.edu at INTERBIT