portview

See what's on your ports, then act on it.

A diagnostic-first port viewer for Linux, macOS, and Windows. One command shows you what's listening, who owns it, how long it's been running, and lets you act on it. With --docker, Docker containers appear as first-class rows - inspect, stop, restart, or tail logs right from the TUI.

~1 MB single binary. Zero runtime dependencies.

Install

# One-liner (Linux/macOS)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mapika/portview/main/install.sh | sh
PowerShell (Windows)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mapika/portview/main/install.ps1 | iex
Homebrew
brew install mapika/tap/portview
Cargo
cargo install portview

Or grab the binary from Releases.

Quick start

portview                      # list all listening ports
portview 3000                 # inspect port 3000 in detail
portview node                 # find ports by process name
portview watch                # interactive TUI
portview watch --docker       # TUI with Docker containers
portview kill 3000 --force    # kill what's on port 3000

Usage

Scan

$ portview
╭──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬──────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────────────────────────────────────╮
│ PORT │ PROTO │ PID   │ USER │ PROCESS  │ UPTIME  │ MEM    │ COMMAND                             │
├──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 3000 │ TCP   │ 48291 │ mark │ node     │ 3h 12m  │ 248 MB │ next dev                            │
│ 5432 │ TCP   │ 1203  │ pg   │ postgres │ 14d 2h  │ 38 MB  │ /usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/postgres │
│ 6379 │ TCP   │ 1198  │ redis│ redis    │ 14d 2h  │ 12 MB  │ redis-server *:6379                 │
│ 8080 │ TCP   │ 51002 │ mark │ python3  │ 22m     │ 45 MB  │ uvicorn main:app --port 8080        │
╰──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────────────────────────────────╯

Use --all to include non-listening connections. Use --wide to show full commands without truncation.

Inspect a port

$ portview 3000
Port 3000 (TCP) - node (PID 48291)
Bind:     *:3000
Command:  next dev
User:     mark
Started:  3h 12m ago
Memory:   248 MB
CPU time: 14.3s
Children: 3
State:    LISTEN
Kill process 48291? [y/N]

Search by process name

portview node        # matches process name and command
portview python

Docker integration

Add --docker to any command. Docker-published ports that have no visible host process appear as their own rows:

$ portview --docker
╭──────┬───────┬───────┬────────┬──────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────────╮
│ PORT │ PROTO │ PID   │ USER   │ PROCESS  │ UPTIME │ MEM    │ COMMAND                           │
├──────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼──────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
│ 3000 │ TCP   │ 48291 │ mark   │ node     │ 3h 12m │ 248 MB │ next dev [docker:web]             │
│ 5432 │ TCP   │ 1203  │ pg     │ postgres │ 14d 2h │ 38 MB  │ /usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/post…  │
│ 8080 │ TCP   │ -     │ docker │ pv-nginx │      - │      - │ nginx:alpine :8080->80/tcp        │
╰──────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴──────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────────╯

• Host processes with a Docker mapping get a [docker:<name>] tag
• Docker-only ports (no host PID) show as synthetic rows with PID -
• portview 8080 --docker shows container detail with image info
• portview nginx --docker finds containers by name
• Works in all modes: scan, inspect, search, watch, and JSON

Kill

portview kill 3000          # SIGTERM (Unix) / TerminateProcess (Windows)
portview kill 3000 --force  # SIGKILL

On Windows, kill always force-terminates via TerminateProcess.

Watch mode (interactive TUI)

portview watch               # interactive TUI, refreshes every 1s
portview watch 3000          # watch a specific port
portview watch node          # filter by process name
portview watch --docker      # show Docker containers as rows
portview watch --json        # streaming JSON (no TUI)

Keybindings

Key	Action
j/k, ↑/↓	Navigate rows
g/G, Home/End	Jump to first/last
Enter	Inspect selected port
d/D	Kill process or manage Docker container
/	Filter across all columns
</>, r	Cycle sort column, reverse direction
1-8	Sort by column N
a	Toggle all/listening-only
q, Esc, Ctrl+C	Quit

On a Docker row, d opens a container management popup with Stop, Restart, and Logs actions. On a host process row, d/D opens the kill confirmation popup (SIGTERM / SIGKILL).

JSON

portview --json                                          # all ports
portview --docker --json                                 # with Docker ownership
portview --docker --json | jq '.[] | {port, process, docker}'
portview watch --json --docker                           # streaming

Custom colors

PORTVIEW_COLORS="port=red,pid=magenta,command=bright_cyan" portview

Columns: port, proto, pid, user, process, uptime, mem, command

Colors: red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, white, bold, dimmed, bright_*, none

Watch mode uses an RGB palette by default. Set PORTVIEW_COLORS to override, or --no-color to disable.

How it works

All process and port data is read directly from the OS - no shelling out to lsof, ss, or netstat.

Field	Linux	macOS	Windows
Port & protocol	/proc/net/tcp{,6}, udp{,6}	proc_pidfdinfo	GetExtendedTcp/UdpTable
PID	inode→pid via /proc/*/fd/	proc_listpids	Included in socket table
Process name	/proc/<pid>/comm	proc_pidpath	QueryFullProcessImageNameW
Command	/proc/<pid>/cmdline	proc_pidpath	QueryFullProcessImageNameW
User	/proc/<pid>/status → getpwuid	proc_pidinfo → getpwuid	OpenProcessToken → LookupAccountSidW
Uptime	/proc/<pid>/stat starttime	proc_pidinfo start time	GetProcessTimes
Memory (RSS)	/proc/<pid>/status VmRSS	proc_pidinfo resident size	K32GetProcessMemoryInfo
CPU time	/proc/<pid>/stat utime+stime	proc_pidinfo user+system	GetProcessTimes
Children	/proc/<pid>/task/*/children	proc_listchildpids	CreateToolhelp32Snapshot

Docker integration queries docker ps when --docker is passed.

Why portview

Tool	Limitation
lsof -i :3000	Different flags per OS, cryptic output, slow
ss -tlnp	Powerful but unreadable, no uptime/memory
fkill-cli	Requires Node.js, kill-first not diagnostic-first
killport	Kill-only, no inspection
procs	General process viewer, not port-centric

portview is diagnostic-first: understand what's on your ports, then act.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/mapika/portview
cd portview
cargo build --release

Limitations

• Linux: Needs read access to /proc/<pid>/fd/. Other users' processes require sudo.
• macOS: Other users' processes may require sudo.
• Windows: Some system processes may not be accessible. Kill always force-terminates. Run as Administrator for full visibility.
• Docker: Requires the docker CLI and access to the Docker daemon.

License

MIT