Last Updated on May 28, 2022
In operation
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.
![Glances](/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Glances.png)
Some of the information that Glances presents isn’t displayed in the image above. For example, warning or critical alerts are not displayed. This is a consequence of Glances dynamically changing the displayed information based on the size of our Hyper terminal window.
We really like its support for monitoring remote machines via its XML-RPC server. There’s also a RESTful JDSON API.
Information displayed by Glances includes:
- CPU usage. If enough horizontal space is available, extended CPU information is displayed. In the same way as the classic top utility, pressing the 1 key shows CPU usage for each individual core.
- GPU usage (in the image above, Glances shows our test machine hosts GeForce graphics card, detailing processor usage, memory usage, and temperature.
- Memory usage. Glances uses two columns: one for the RAM and one for the SWAP.
- Load on the system.
- File system – displays the used and total file system disk space. The unit is adapted dynamically.
- Filesystem I/O – displays the disk I/O throughput. The unit is also adapted dynamically.
- Network I/O. Glances displays the network interface bit rate. The unit is again adapted dynamically (bit/s, kbit/s, Mbit/s, etc). The module also shows extended information about network connections.
- Wi-Fi – displays the Wi-Fi hotspot names and signal quality.
- Ports – provides a list of hosts/port and URL to scan.
- List of tasks.
Glances lets you toggle modules on and off. With a few keyboard shortcuts you can show/hide filesystem stats, sensors stats, disk I/O stats, alert logs, and network stats. Pressing h from the Glances interface displays a complete list of the available keyboard shortcuts.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
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