6 conky - A system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code, but
7 more kickass. It just keeps on given’er. Yeah.
13 Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code.
14 Since it’s original conception, Conky has changed a fair bit from it’s
15 predecessor. Conky can display just about anything, either on your
16 root desktop or in it’s own window. Conky has many built-in objects,
17 as well as the ability to execute programs and scripts, then display
18 the output from stdout.
20 We are always looking for help, and anyone interested in becoming a
21 developer is welcome. Please use the facilities at SourceForge to make
22 bug reports, feature requests, and submit patches.
24 Thanks for your interest in Conky.
27 For users compiling from source, make sure you have the X development
28 libraries installed. This should be a package along the lines of
29 "libx11-dev or xorg-x11-dev".
31 Gentoo users -- Conky is in Gentoo’s Portage... simply use "emerge app-
32 admin/conky" for installation. There is also usually an up-to-date
33 ebuild within Conky’s package or in CVS.
35 Debian,etc. users -- Conky will be in Debian’s repositories soon (by
36 mid-September, hopefully), and then Ubuntu shortly thereafter. Until
37 then, "dpkg -i" the .deb package to install.
39 Example to compile and run Conky with all optional components (note
40 that some configure options may differ for your system):
42 sh autogen.sh # Only required if building from CVS
44 ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man
45 --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
46 --localstatedir=/var/lib --enable-xft --enable-seti --enable-dou‐
47 ble-buffer --enable-own-window --enable-proc-uptime --enable-mpd
48 --enable-mldonkey --enable-x11 --enable-portmon
52 make install # Optional
56 Conky probably doesn’t compile with compilers other than gcc and icc.
57 It doesn’t compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It
58 uses a few things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strn‐
59 casecmp(), optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89).
60 Crashes in file system statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don’t
63 You can disable ’drawing to own window’ feature in case you don’t need
64 it by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
68 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
69 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
70 $top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the
73 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
74 unless you think something’s seriously wrong (mem leak, etc.).
76 An easy way to force Conky to reload your ~/.conkyrc: "killall -SIGUSR1
77 conky". Saves you the trouble of having to kill and then restart.
79 IMPORTANT: For previous Conky users, Conky 1.3 no longer supports the
80 metar stuff. mdsplib was causing way too many problems. Hopefully
81 there’ll be a better solution in Conky 2.x...
84 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
88 Prints version and exits
92 Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right} or none
95 -b Use double buffering (eliminates "flicker")
99 Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
102 -d Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background
109 -h Prints command line help and exits
112 -o Create own window to draw
116 Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t ’ $uptime ’
135 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
136 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
137 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. If installing from
138 Debian package, this should be in /usr/share/doc/conky/examples ("gun‐
139 zip conkyrc.sample.gz" to get conkyrc.sample).
141 You might want to copy it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying
142 it. Other configs can be found at http://conky.sf.net
145 Aligned position on screen, may be top_left, top_right, bot‐
146 tom_left, bottom_right, or none
150 Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to background when
155 Set conky on the bottom of all other applications
159 Border margin in pixels
163 Border width in pixels
167 The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
171 Default color and border color
175 Default shading color and border’s shading color
178 default_outline_color
179 Default outline color
183 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom‐
184 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won’t be
189 Draw borders around text?
200 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
203 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as passing -x
207 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as passing -y
212 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
216 Mail spool for mail checking
220 Maximum width of window
223 minimum_size width (height)
224 Minimum size of window
228 Hostname for mldonkey stuff, defaults to localhost
232 Mldonkey port, 4001 default
236 Mldonkey login, default none
240 Mldonkey password, default none
256 The number of samples to average for net data
260 Force UTF8? requires XFT
264 Boolean, create own window to draw?
267 own_window_transparent
268 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
271 own_window_colour colour
272 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
273 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
274 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
278 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
282 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
286 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
287 makes Conky run forever
291 Update interval in seconds
295 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
299 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
300 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
301 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
305 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
309 Allow for the creation of at least this number of port monitors
310 (if 0 or not set, default is 16)
313 min_port_monitor_connections
314 Allow each port monitor to track at least this many connections
315 (if 0 or not set, default is 256)
318 TEXT After this begins text to be formatted on screen
322 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
323 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html
324 [http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html]. Color can be also in #rrggbb for‐
325 mat (hex). Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000
326 so 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
329 IP address for an interface
333 ACPI ac adapter state.
341 ACPI temperature in C.
345 ACPI temperature in F.
349 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
353 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
357 Right-justify text, with space of N
365 Display APM AC adapter status (FreeBSD only)
369 Display APM battery life in percent (FreeBSD only)
373 Display remaining APM battery life in hh:mm:ss or "unknown" if
374 AC adapterstatus is on-line or charging (FreeBSD only)
378 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
379 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
383 Amount of memory buffered
386 cached Amount of memory cached
390 Change drawing color to color
394 CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be
395 provided as an argument. cpu0 is the total usage, and >=cpu1 are
399 cpubar (cpu number) (height),(width)
400 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar’s height in pixels. See
401 $cpu for more info on SMP.
404 cpugraph (cpu number) (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
406 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #. See
407 $cpu for more info on SMP.
410 diskio Displays current disk IO.
413 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
415 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
416 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
420 Download speed in kilobytes
424 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
427 downspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
429 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
430 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
433 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
437 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn‐
438 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I’d
439 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
443 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value
444 between 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for
445 the bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
449 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
452 execi interval command
453 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can’t be less
454 than update_interval in configuration. See also $texeci
457 execibar interval command
458 Same as execbar, except with an interval
461 execigraph interval command
462 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
466 Specify a different font. Only applies to one line.
469 freq Returns CPU frequency in MHz
472 freq_g Returns CPU frequency in GHz
476 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
477 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
482 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
483 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
487 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
488 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
489 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
493 Free space on a file system available for users.
497 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
505 File system used space
508 head logfile lines (interval)
509 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
510 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky’s interval. Max of 30
511 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
515 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
519 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
520 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
521 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
522 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
523 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
527 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
528 whether ac power is on, as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
529 human-readable). Beware that this is by default not enabled by
534 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
535 the bios version as listed in /proc/i8k.
539 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
540 the volume buttons status as listed in /proc/i8k.
544 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
545 the cpu temperature in celsius, as reported by /proc/i8k.
549 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
550 the cpu temperature in farenheit, as reported by /proc/i8k.
554 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
555 the left fan’s rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
556 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
561 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
562 the left fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to human-
563 readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
568 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
569 the right fan’s rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
570 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
575 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
576 the right fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
577 human-readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
582 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
583 your laptop serial number as listed in /proc/i8k.
587 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
588 the version formatting of /proc/i8k.
592 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
597 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
601 if_mounted (mountpoint)
602 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
603 and the matching $endif
606 kernel Kernel version
610 Get the link status for wireless connections
614 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
615 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
619 Machine, i686 for example
622 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
623 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
627 mem Amount of memory in use
630 membar (height),(width)
631 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
634 memmax Total amount of memory
638 Percentage of memory in use
642 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
646 Album in current MPD song
649 mpd_bar (height),(width)
650 Bar of mpd’s progress
654 Bitrate of current song
658 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
662 Title of current MPD song
678 Percent of song’s progress
682 Random status (On/Off)
686 Repeat status (On/Off)
690 Prints the MPD track field
694 Unread mail count in mail spool.
705 pre_exec shell command
706 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
707 and puts output as text.
711 Total processes (sleeping and running)
715 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
723 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
726 swapbar (height),(width)
727 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
730 swap Amount of swap in use
738 Percentage of swap in use
742 System name, Linux for example
745 tcp_portmon port_begin port_end item (index) (ip4 only at present)
746 TCP port monitor for specified local ports. Port numbers must be
747 in the range 1 to 65535. Valid items are:
749 count - total number of connections in the range
751 rip - remote ip address
753 rhost - remote host name
755 rport - remote port number
757 lip - local ip address
759 lhost - local host name
761 lservice - local service name from /etc/services
763 The connection index provides you with access to each connection
764 in the port monitor. The monitor will return information for
765 index values from 0 to n-1 connections. Values higher than n-1
766 are simply ignored. For the "count" item, the connection index
767 must be omitted. It is required for all other items.
771 ${tcp_portmon 6881 6999 count} - displays the number of connec‐
772 tions in the bittorrent port range
774 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 0} - displays the remote host ip of the
775 first sshd connection
777 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 9} - displays the remote host ip of the
778 tenth sshd connection
780 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rhost 0} - displays the remote host name of
781 the first connection on a privileged port
783 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rport 4} - displays the remote host port of
784 the fifth connection on a privileged port
786 ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 lservice 14} - displays the local service
787 name of the fifteenth connection in the range of all ports
789 Note that port monitor variables which share the same port range
790 actually refer to the same monitor, so many references to a sin‐
791 gle port range for different items and different indexes all use
792 the same monitor internally. In other words, the program avoids
793 creating redundant monitors.
795 texeci interval command
796 Runs a command at an interval inside a thread and displays the
797 output. Same as $execi, except the command is run inside a
798 thread. Use this if you have a slow script to keep Conky updat‐
799 ing. You should make the interval slightly longer then the time
800 it takes your script to execute. For example, if you have a
801 script that take 5 seconds to execute, you should make the
802 interval at least 6 seconds. See also $execi.
806 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
809 tail logfile lines (interval)
810 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
811 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky’s interval. Max of 30 lines
812 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
816 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for‐
821 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
822 there doesn’t seem to be a way to know how many times it has
823 already done that before conky has started.
827 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
828 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu
829 usage, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
830 "pid", "cpu", and mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
835 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
839 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
842 updates Number of updates
847 Upload speed in kilobytes
851 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
854 upspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
856 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
857 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
864 Uptime in a shorter format
868 Seti@home current progress
871 seti_progbar (height),(width)
872 Seti@home current progress bar
876 Seti@home total user credit
880 Change verticle offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
881 text to overlap. See also $offset.
885 conky -t ’${time %D %H:%m}’ -o -u 30
886 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
889 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
890 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
893 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
896 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn’t work with
897 all window managers. Especially doesn’t work well with Gnome and it has
898 been reported that it doesn’t work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
899 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
900 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
901 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
902 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
903 which makes Conky to create its own window.
906 http://conky.sourceforge.net [http://conky.sourceforge.net]
908 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky [http://www.source‐
909 forge.net/projects/conky]
911 #conky on irc.freenode.net
914 The Conky dev team. What’s up now!