============================= Glances -- Eye on your system

Description

Glances is a CLI curses based monitoring tool for GNU/Linux and BSD OS.

Glances uses the PsUtil library to get information from your system.

It is developed in Python.

Installation

Pre-requisites (information for packagers):

Python 2.6+ (not tested with Python 3+)
build-essential (fo installation via Pypi and setup.py)
python-dev (for installation via Pypi)
python-setuptools (for the installation via setup.py)
python-psutil 0.4.1+ (replace the old libstatgrab's lib)
python-jinja2 2.0+ (optional for HTML export)

From package manager (very easy way)

Packages exist for Arch, Fedora, Redhat, FreeBSD...

From PPA (easy way for Ubuntu/Mint...)

Arnaud Hartmann (thanks to him !) maintains a PPA with the latest Glances version:

The PPA is available for Ubuntu version 9.10 to 12.04.

To install the PPA just enter:

    $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:arnaud-hartmann/glances-stable
    $ sudo apt-get update

Then install Glances:

    $ sudo apt-get install glances

From PyPi (easy way)

PyPi is an official Python package manager.

You first need to install pypi on your system. For example on Debian/Ubuntu:

    $ sudo apt-get install python-pip build-essential python-dev

Then install the latest Glances version:

    $ sudo pip install glances

From Homebrew via PyPi (OS X)

$ brew install brew-pip
$ export PYTHONPATH=$(brew --prefix)/lib/python2.7/site-packages
$ brew pip Glances

From source

Get the latest version:

$ wget https://github.com/downloads/nicolargo/glances/glances-1.4.tar.gz

Glances use a standard GNU style installer:

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools build-essential python-dev
$ tar zxvf glances-1.4.tar.gz
$ cd glances-1.4
$ sudo python setup.py install

Running

Easy way (that's all folks !):

$ glances

User guide

By default, stats are refreshed every second, to change this setting, you can use the -t option. For example to set the refrech rate to 5 seconds:

$ glances -t 5

Importants stats are colored:

GREEN: stat counter is "OK"
BLUE: stat counter is "CAREFUL"
MAGENTA: stat counter is "WARNING"
RED: stat counter is "CRITICAL"

When Glances is running, you can press:

'h' to display an help message whith the keys you can press
'a' to set the automatic mode. The processes are sorted automatically

If CPU > 70%, sort by process "CPU consumption"

If MEM > 70%, sort by process "memory size"
'c' to sort the processes list by CPU consumption
'd' Disable or enable the disk IO stats
'f' Disable or enable the file system stats
'l' Disable or enable the logs
'm' to sort the processes list by process MEM
'n' Disable or enable the network interfaces stats
'p' to sort by process name
'q' Exit

Header

The header shows the host name and the operating system name, version and architecture.

CPU

The CPU states are shown as a percentage and for the configured refresh time. The total CPU usage is displayed on the first line.

If horizontal space is available, per core CPU infomations are displayed.

Color code used:

If user|kernel|nice CPU is < 50%, then status is set to "OK".

If user|kernel|nice CPU is > 50%, then status is set to "CAREFUL".

If user|kernel|nice CPU is > 70%, then status is set to "WARNING".

If user|kernel|nice CPU is > 90%, then status is set to "CRITICAL".

Load

On the Nosheep blog, Zach defines the average load: "In short it is the average sum of the number of processes waiting in the run-queue plus the number currently executing over 1, 5, and 15 minute time periods."

Glances gets the number of CPU cores to adapt the alerts. With Glances, alerts on average load are only set on 5 and 15 mins. The first line also display the number of CPU core.

If average load is < O.7*Core, then status is set to "OK".

If average load is > O.7*Core, then status is set to "CAREFUL".

If average load is > 1*Core, then status is set to "WARNING".

If average load is > 5*Core, then status is set to "CRITICAL".

Memory

Glances uses tree columns: memory (RAM), "real" and swap.

Real used memory is: used - cache.

Real free memory is: free + cache.

With Glances, alerts are only set for on used swap and real memory.

If memory is < 50%, then status is set to "OK".

If memory is > 50%, then status is set to "CAREFUL".

If memory is > 70%, then status is set to "WARNING".

If memory is > 90%, then status is set to "CRITICAL".

Network bit rate

Glances display the network interface bit rate. The unit is adapted dynamicaly (bits per second, Kbits per second, Mbits per second...).

Alerts are set only if the network interface maximum speed is available.

If bitrate is < 50%, then status is set to "OK".

If bitrate is > 50%, then status is set to "CAREFUL".

If bitrate is > 70%, then status is set to "WARNING".

If bitrate is > 90%, then status is set to "CRITICAL".

For example, on a 100 Mbps Ethernet interface, the warning status is set if the bit rate is higher than 70 Mbps.

Disk I/O

Glances displays the disk I/O throughput. The unit is adapted dynamicaly (bytes per second, Kbytes per second, Mbytes per second...).

There is no alert on this information.

Filesystem

Glances display the total and used filesytem disk space. The unit is adapted dynamicaly (bytes per second, Kbytes per second, Mbytes per second...).

Alerts are set for used disk space:

If disk used is < 50%, then status is set to "OK".

If disk used is > 50%, then status is set to "CAREFUL".

If disk used is > 70%, then status is set to "WARNING".

If disk used is > 90%, then status is set to "CRITICAL".

Processes

Glances displays a summary and a list of processes.

By default (or if you hit the 'a' key) the process list is automaticaly sorted by CPU of memory consumption.

The number of processes in the list is adapted to the screen size.

VIRT: Virtual memory size (in byte)
REST: Amount of resident memory (in byte)
CPU%: % of CPU used by the process
MEM%: % of MEM used by the process
PID: Process ID
USER: Process user ID
NI: Nice level of the process
S: Process status

R - Running D - Sleeping (may not be interrupted) S - Sleeping (may be interrupted) T - Traced or stopped Z - Zombie or "hung" process
TIME+: Cumulative CPU time used
NAME: Process name or command line

Logs

A logs list is displayed in the bottom of the screen if (an only if):

at least one WARNING or CRITICAL alert was occured.
space is available in the bottom of the console/terminal

There is one line per alert with the following information:

start date
end date
alert name
(min/avg/max) values

Footer

Glances displays the current time/date and access to the embeded help screen.

Localisation

To generate french locale execute as root or sudo : i18n_francais_generate.sh

To generate spanish locale execute as root or sudo : i18n_espanol_generate.sh

Todo

You are welcome to contribute to this software.

Code optimization
Port to FreeBSD and Mac OS X
Documentation for HTML and CVS export option

lwz7512 / glances