Docu review done: Mon 03 Jul 2023 16:35:16 CEST

Table of content

• Description
• Installation
• Parametes
• Standalone Mode
• Server Mode
• Web Server Mode
• Central client

Description

Glances is a cross-platform monitoring tool which aims to present a maximum of information in a minimum of space through a curses or Web based interface. It can adapt dynamically the displayed information depending on the terminal size.

It can also work in client/server mode. Remote monitoring could be done via terminal, Web interface or API (XMLRPC and RESTful).

Glances is written in Python and uses the psutil library to get information from your system.

Installation

$ apt install glances

Parametes

Standalone Mode

If you want to monitor your local machine, open a console/terminal and simply run:

$ glances

Glances should start (press ‘q’ or ‘ESC’ to exit):

It is also possible to display RAW JSON stats directly to stdout using:

$ glances --stdout cpu.user,mem.used,load
cpu.user: 30.7
mem.used: 3278204928
load: {'cpucore': 4, 'min1': 0.21, 'min5': 0.4, 'min15': 0.27}
cpu.user: 3.4
mem.used: 3275251712
load: {'cpucore': 4, 'min1': 0.19, 'min5': 0.39, 'min15': 0.27}
...

or in a CSV format thanks to the stdout-csv option:

$ glances --stdout-csv now,cpu.user,mem.used,load
now,cpu.user,mem.used,load.cpucore,load.min1,load.min5,load.min15
2018-12-08 22:04:20 CEST,7.3,5948149760,4,1.04,0.99,1.04
2018-12-08 22:04:23 CEST,5.4,5949136896,4,1.04,0.99,1.04
...

Note: It will display one line per stat per refresh.

Server Mode

While running the server mode you can specify with the parameters -B ADDRESS and -p PORT where it should listen on

$ glances -s -B 10.0.0.19 -p 10012

To limit the access you can use the parameter --password PWD and specify one. If you want, the SHA password will be stored in username.pwd file. Next time your run the server/client, password will not be asked. The defualt user name is glances which can be overwritten with the parameter --username USERNAME

Web Server Mode

If you want to remotely monitor a machine, called server, from any device with a web browser, just run the server with the -w option:

$ glances -w

then on the client enter the following URL in your favorite web browser:

http://@server:61208

where @server is the IP address or hostname of the server.

To change the refresh rate of the page, just add the period in seconds at the end of the URL. For example, to refresh the page every 10 seconds:

http://@server:61208/10

The Glances web interface follows responsive web design principles.

Central client

Glances can centralize available Glances servers using the --browser option. The server list can be statically defined via the configuration file (section [serverlist]).

Example

[serverlist]
# Define the static servers list
server_1_name=xps
server_1_alias=xps
server_1_port=61209
server_2_name=win
server_2_port=61235

Glances can also detect and display all Glances servers available on your network via the zeroconf protocol (not available on Windows):

To start the central client, use the following option:

$ glances --browser

Use –disable-autodiscover to disable the auto discovery mode.

When the list is displayed, you can navigate through the Glances servers with up/down keys. It is also possible to sort the server using: - ‘1’ is normal (do not sort) - ‘2’ is using sorting with ascending order (ONLINE > SNMP > PROTECTED > OFFLINE > UNKNOWN) - ‘3’ is using sorting with descending order (UNKNOW > OFFLINE > PROTECTED > SNMP > ONLINE)