This page gives a good introduction to how to get started with Glances. Glances offers three modes:
- Standalone
- Client/Server
- Web server
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 (Python) stats directly to stdout using:
$ glances --stdout cpu.user,mem.used,load,network.wlp2s0.bytes_all
cpu.user: 30.7
mem.used: 3278204928
load: {'cpucore': 4, 'min1': 0.21, 'min5': 0.4, 'min15': 0.27}
network.wlp2s0.bytes_all: 13479
cpu.user: 3.4
mem.used: 3275251712
load: {'cpucore': 4, 'min1': 0.19, 'min5': 0.39, 'min15': 0.27}
network.wlp2s0.bytes_all: 12868
...
or in a CSV format thanks to the stdout-csv option (key not supported in this mode):
$ 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
...
or as a JSON format thanks to the stdout-json option (attribute not supported in this mode):
$ glances --stdout-json cpu,mem
cpu: {"total": 29.0, "user": 24.7, "nice": 0.0, "system": 3.8, "idle": 71.4, "iowait": 0.0, "irq": 0.0, "softirq": 0.0, "steal": 0.0, "guest": 0.0, "guest_nice": 0.0, "time_since_update": 1, "cpucore": 4, "ctx_switches": 0, "interrupts": 0, "soft_interrupts": 0, "syscalls": 0}
mem: {"total": 7837949952, "available": 2919079936, "percent": 62.8, "used": 4918870016, "free": 2919079936, "active": 2841214976, "inactive": 3340550144, "buffers": 546799616, "cached": 3068141568, "shared": 788156416}
...
Note: It will display one line per stat per refresh.
If you want to remotely monitor a machine called server
, from
another one, called client
, just run on the server:
server$ glances -s
and on the client:
client$ glances -c @server
where @server
is the IP address or hostname of the server.
In server mode, you can set the bind address with -B ADDRESS
and
the listening TCP port with -p PORT
.
In client mode, you can set the TCP port of the server with -p PORT
.
Default binding address is 0.0.0.0
(Glances will listen on all the
available network interfaces) and TCP port is 61209
.
In client/server mode, limits are set by the server side.
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:
client$ glances --browser
Note
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 (UNKNOWN > OFFLINE > PROTECTED > SNMP > ONLINE)
As an experimental feature, if Glances server is not detected by the
client, the latter will try to grab stats using the SNMP
protocol:
client$ glances -c @snmpserver
Note
Stats grabbed by SNMP request are limited and OS-dependent. A SNMP server should be installed and configured...
Glances is IPv6
compatible. Just use the -B ::
option to bind to
all IPv6 addresses.
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:
server$ 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, 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.
Here's a screenshot from Chrome on Android:
You can set a password to access the server using the --password
.
By default, the login is glances
but you can change it with
--username
.
If you want, the SHA password will be stored in <login>.pwd
file (in
the same folder where the Glances configuration file is stored, so
~/.config/glances/ on GNU Linux operating system).
Next time you run the server/client, password will not be asked. To set a specific username, you can use the -u <username> option.
It is also possible to set the default password in the Glances configuration file:
[passwords]
# Define the passwords list
# Syntax: host=password
# Where: host is the hostname
# password is the clear password
# Additionally (and optionally) a default password could be defined
localhost=mylocalhostpassword
default=mydefaultpassword