Glances – A top/htop alternative for GNU/Linux, BSD, MacOS and Windows

Glances is a cross-platform monitoring tool which aims to present a large amount of monitoring information through a curses or Web based interface. The information dynamically adapts depending on the size of the user interface.

It can also work in client/server mode. Remote monitoring could be done via terminal, Web interface or API (XML-RPC and RESTful). Stats can also be exported to files or external time/value databases.

Glances is written in Python and uses libraries to grab information from your system. It is based on an open architecture where developers can add new plugins or exports modules.

Requirements

Python 2.7 and 3.4 are now available via SCL repositories. See: https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2015-December/021555.html.

Installation

Glances Auto Install script: the total way

curl -L https://bit.ly/glances | /bin/bash

wget -O- https://bit.ly/glances | /bin/bash

Note: This is only supported on some GNU/Linux distributions and Mac OS X. If you want to support other distributions, please contribute to glancesautoinstall.

PyPI: The simple way

pip install glances

Note: Python headers are required to install psutil. For example, on Debian/Ubuntu you need to install first the python-devpackage. For Fedora/CentOS/RHEL install first python-devel package. For Windows, just install psutil from the binary installation file. 

Note 2 (for the Wifi plugin): If you want to use the Wifi plugin, you need to install the wireless-tools package on your system.

You can also install the following libraries in order to use optional features (like the Web interface, exports modules…):

pip install 'glances[action,browser,cloud,cpuinfo,docker,export,folders,gpu,graph,ip,raid,snmp,web,wifi]'

To upgrade Glances to the latest version:

pip install --upgrade glances
pip install --upgrade glances[...]

If you need to install Glances in a specific user location, use:

export PYTHONUSERBASE=~/mylocalpath
pip install --user glances

Docker: the funny way

A Glances container is available. It includes the latest development HEAD version. You can use it to monitor your server and all your other containers!

Get the Glances container:

docker pull nicolargo/glances

Run the container in console mode:

docker run --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro --pid host --network host -it docker.io/
nicolargo/glances

Additionally, if you want to use your own glances.conf file, you can create your own Dockerfile:

FROM nicolargo/glances
COPY glances.conf /glances/conf/glances.conf
CMD python -m glances -C /glances/conf/glances.conf $GLANCES_OPT

Alternatively, you can specify something along the same lines with docker run options:

docker run -v `pwd`/glances.conf:/glances/conf/glances.conf -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro --pid host -it docker.io/nicolargo/glances

Where `pwd`/glances.conf is a local directory containing your glances.conf file. Run the container in Web server mode (notice the GLANCES_OPT environment variable setting parameters for the glances startup command):

docker run -d --restart="always" -p 61208-61209:61208-61209 -e GLANCES_OPT="-w" -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro --pid host docker.io/nicolargo/glances

GNU/Linux

Glances is available on many Linux distributions, so you should be able to install it using your favorite package manager. Be aware that when you use this method the operating system package for Glances may not be the latest version.

FreeBSD

# pkg install py27-glances

# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/py-glances/
# make install clean

Homebrew

$ brew install glances

$ sudo port install glances

Install Python for Windows (Python 2.7.9+ and 3.4+ ship with pip) and then run the following command:

$ pip install glances

Alternatively, you could clone the repository and install with the following command.

$ git clone https://github.com/nicolargo/glances.git
$ cd glances
$ python setup.py install

Android

You need a rooted device and the Termux application (available on the Google Play Store).

Start Termux on your device and enter:

$ apt update
$ apt upgrade
$ apt install clang python python-dev
$ pip install bottle
$ pip install glances

And start Glances:

$ glances

You can also run Glances in server mode (-s or -w) in order to remotely monitor your Android device.

Source

$ wget https://github.com/nicolargo/glances/archive/vX.Y.tar.gz -O - | tar xz
$ cd glances-*
# python setup.py install

Chef

An awesome Chef cookbook is available to monitor your infrastructure: https://supermarket.chef.io/cookbooks/glances(thanks to Antoine Rouyer)

Puppet

You can install Glances using Puppet: https://github.com/rverchere/puppet-glances

Ansible

A Glances Ansible role is available: https://galaxy.ansible.com/zaxos/glances-ansible-role/

Usage

$ glances

$ glances -w

$ glances -s

$ glances -c <ip>

$ glances --browser

$ 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}
...

$ 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
...

Documentation

For complete documentation have a look at the readthedocs website.

If you have any question (after RTFM!), please post it on the official Q&A forum.

Gateway to other services

How to contribute ?

If you want to contribute to the Glances project, read this wiki page. There is also a chat dedicated to the Glances developers:

Author

Nicolas Hennion (@nicolargo) <[email protected]>

Download tool and support the author: https://github.com/nicolargo/glances