config.rst

Configuration

No configuration file is mandatory to use Glances.

Furthermore a configuration file is needed to access more settings.

Location

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

Linux	~/.config/glances, /etc/glances
*BSD	~/.config/glances, /usr/local/etc/glances
OS X	~/Library/Application Support/glances, /usr/local/etc/glances
Windows	%APPDATA%glances

On Windows XP, the %APPDATA% path is:

C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data

Since Windows Vista and newer versions:

C:\Users\<User>\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.log file is under the temporary directory:

Linux, *BSD, OS X	/tmp
Windows	%APPDATA%\Local\temp

If glances.log is not writable, a new file will be created and returned to the user console.

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.