config.rst

Configuration

No configuration file is mandatory to use Glances.

Furthermore a configuration file is needed to access more settings.

Location

Note

A template is available in the /usr{,/local}/share/doc/glances (Unix-like) directory or directly on GitHub.

You can put your own glances.conf file in the following locations:

Linux, SunOS	~/.config/glances, /etc/glances
*BSD	~/.config/glances, /usr/local/etc/glances
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/glances, /usr/local/etc/glances
Windows	%APPDATA%\glances

• On Windows XP, %APPDATA% is: C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data.
• On Windows Vista and later: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming.

User-specific options override system-wide options and options given on the command line override either.

Syntax

Glances reads configuration files in the ini syntax.

A first section (called global) is available:

[global]
# Does Glances should check if a newer version is available on PyPI?
check_update=true

Each plugin, export module and application monitoring process (AMP) can have a section. Below an example for the CPU plugin:

[cpu]
user_careful=50
user_warning=70
user_critical=90
iowait_careful=50
iowait_warning=70
iowait_critical=90
system_careful=50
system_warning=70
system_critical=90
steal_careful=50
steal_warning=70
steal_critical=90

an InfluxDB export module:

[influxdb]
# Configuration for the --export-influxdb option
# https://influxdb.com/
host=localhost
port=8086
user=root
password=root
db=glances
prefix=localhost
#tags=foo:bar,spam:eggs

or a Nginx AMP:

[amp_nginx]
# Nginx status page should be enable (https://easyengine.io/tutorials/nginx/status-page/)
enable=true
regex=\/usr\/sbin\/nginx
refresh=60
one_line=false
status_url=http://localhost/nginx_status

Logging

Glances logs all of its internal messages to a log file.

DEBUG messages can been logged using the -d option on the command line.

By default, the glances-USERNAME.log file is under the temporary directory:

*nix	/tmp
Windows	%TEMP%

• On Windows XP, %TEMP% is: C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Temp.
• On Windows Vista and later: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp.

If you want to use another system path or change the log message, you can use your own logger configuration. First of all, you have to create a glances.json file with, for example, the following content (JSON format):

{
    "version": 1,
    "disable_existing_loggers": "False",
    "root": {
        "level": "INFO",
        "handlers": ["file", "console"]
    },
    "formatters": {
        "standard": {
            "format": "%(asctime)s -- %(levelname)s -- %(message)s"
        },
        "short": {
            "format": "%(levelname)s: %(message)s"
        },
        "free": {
            "format": "%(message)s"
        }
    },
    "handlers": {
        "file": {
            "level": "DEBUG",
            "class": "logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler",
            "formatter": "standard",
            "filename": "/var/tmp/glances.log"
        },
        "console": {
            "level": "CRITICAL",
            "class": "logging.StreamHandler",
            "formatter": "free"
        }
    },
    "loggers": {
        "debug": {
            "handlers": ["file", "console"],
            "level": "DEBUG"
        },
        "verbose": {
            "handlers": ["file", "console"],
            "level": "INFO"
        },
        "standard": {
            "handlers": ["file"],
            "level": "INFO"
        },
        "requests": {
            "handlers": ["file", "console"],
            "level": "ERROR"
        },
        "elasticsearch": {
            "handlers": ["file", "console"],
            "level": "ERROR"
        },
        "elasticsearch.trace": {
            "handlers": ["file", "console"],
            "level": "ERROR"
        }
    }
}

and start Glances using the following command line:

LOG_CFG=<path>/glances.json glances

Note

Replace <path> by the folder where your glances.json file is hosted.