6 conky - a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code, but
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 First, make sure you have the X development libraries installed, this
28 should be a package along the lines of "libx11-dev or xorg-x11-dev".
29 Gentoo users, Conky is in Gentoo's Portage. Simply use "emerge conky"
30 for installation. There is also usually an up-to-date ebuild within
31 Conky's package or in CVS.
33 To compile and run Conky with all optional components:
35 sh autogen.sh # Only required if building from CVS
37 ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man
38 --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
39 --localstatedir=/var/lib --enable-double-buffer --enable-own-window
40 --enable-proc-uptime --enable-mpd --enable-xft --enable-seti
44 make install # Optional
48 Conky doesn't probably compile with other compilers than gcc and icc.
49 It doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It
50 uses few things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strn-
51 casecmp(), optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89).
52 Crashes in file system statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't
55 You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need
56 it by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
60 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
61 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
62 $top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the
65 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
66 unless you think something is going seriously wrong (mem leak, et
70 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
73 -V Prints version and exits
77 Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right} or none
80 -b Use double buffering (eliminates "flicker")
84 Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
87 -d Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background
94 -h Prints command line help and exits
97 -o Create own window to draw
101 Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t ' $uptime '
120 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
121 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
122 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. You might want to copy
123 it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying it.
126 Aligned position on screen, may be top_left, top_right, bot-
127 tom_left, bottom_right, or none
131 Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to background when
136 Set conky on the bottom of all other applications
140 Border margin in pixels
144 Border width in pixels
148 The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
152 Default color and border color
156 Default shading color and border's shading color
159 default_outline_color
160 Default outline color
164 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom-
165 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won't be
170 Draw borders around text?
181 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
184 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as passing -x
188 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as passing -y
193 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
197 Mail spool for mail checking
201 Maximum width of window
204 minimum_size width (height)
205 Minimum size of window
209 Hostname for mldonkey stuff, defaults to localhost
213 Mldonkey port, 4001 default
217 Mldonkey login, default none
221 Mldonkey password, default none
237 The number of samples to average for net data
241 Force UTF8? requires XFT
245 Boolean, create own window to draw?
248 own_window_transparent
249 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
252 own_window_colour colour
253 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
254 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
255 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
259 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
263 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
267 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
268 makes Conky run forever
272 Update interval in seconds
276 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
280 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
281 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
282 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
286 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
289 text After this begins text to be formatted on screen
293 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
294 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html
295 [http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html] Color can be also in #rrggbb format
296 (hex). Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so
297 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
300 IP address for an interface
304 ACPI ac adapter state.
312 ACPI temperature in C.
316 ACPI temperature in F.
320 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
324 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
328 Right-justify text, with space of N
336 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
337 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
341 Amount of memory buffered
344 cached Amount of memory cached
348 Change drawing color to color
352 CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be
353 provided as an argument. cpu0 is the total usage, and >=cpu1 are
354 individual CPUs. See $cpu for more info on SMP.
357 cpubar (cpu number) (height),(width)
358 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels
361 cpugraph (cpu number) (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
363 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #. See
364 $cpu for more info on SMP.
367 diskio Displays current disk IO.
370 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
372 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
373 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
377 Download speed in kilobytes
381 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
384 downspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
386 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
387 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
390 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
394 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
395 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
396 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
400 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value
401 between 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for
402 the bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
406 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
409 execi interval command
410 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
411 than update_interval in configuration.
414 execibar interval command
415 Same as execbar, except with an interval
418 execigraph interval command
419 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
423 Specify a different font. Only applies to one line.
426 freq Returns CPU frequency in MHz
429 freq_g Returns CPU frequency in GHz
433 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
434 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
439 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
440 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
444 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
445 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
446 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
450 Free space on a file system available for users.
454 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
462 File system used space
465 head logfile lines (interval)
466 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
467 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30
468 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
472 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
476 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
477 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
478 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
479 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
480 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
484 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
485 whether ac power is on, as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
486 human-readable). Beware that this is by default not enabled by
491 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
492 the bios version as listed in /proc/i8k.
496 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
497 the volume buttons status as listed in /proc/i8k.
501 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
502 the cpu temperature in celsius, as reported by /proc/i8k.
506 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
507 the cpu temperature in farenheit, as reported by /proc/i8k.
511 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
512 the left fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
513 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
518 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
519 the left fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to human-
520 readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
525 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
526 the right fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
527 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
532 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
533 the right fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
534 human-readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
539 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
540 your laptop serial number as listed in /proc/i8k.
544 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
545 the version formatting of /proc/i8k.
549 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
554 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
558 if_mounted (mountpoint)
559 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
560 and the matching $endif
563 kernel Kernel version
567 Get the link status for wireless connections
571 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
572 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
576 Machine, i686 for example
579 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
580 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
584 mem Amount of memory in use
587 membar (height),(width)
588 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
591 memmax Total amount of memory
595 Percentage of memory in use
599 total session upload in mb
603 total session download in mb
607 number of shared files
611 total session shared in mb, buggy in some mldonkey versions
615 tcp upload rate in kb/s
619 tcp download rate in kb/s
623 udp upload rate in kb/s
627 udp download rate in kb/s
631 number of completed files
634 ml_ndownloading_files
635 number of downloading files
639 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
643 Album in current MPD song
646 mpd_bar (height),(width)
647 Bar of mpd's progress
651 Bitrate of current song
655 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
659 Title of current MPD song
675 Percent of song's progress
679 Unread mail count in mail spool.
690 pre_exec shell command
691 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
692 and puts output as text.
696 Total processes (sleeping and running)
700 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
708 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
711 swapbar (height),(width)
712 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
715 swap Amount of swap in use
723 Percentage of swap in use
727 System name, Linux for example
731 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
734 tail logfile lines (interval)
735 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
736 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30 lines
737 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
741 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
746 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
747 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has
748 already done that before conky has started.
752 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
753 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu
754 usage, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
755 "pid", "cpu", and mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
760 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
764 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
767 updates Number of updates
772 Upload speed in kilobytes
776 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
779 upspeedgraph net, (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
781 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
782 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
789 Uptime in a shorter format
793 Seti@home current progress
796 seti_progbar (height),(width)
797 Seti@home current progress bar
801 Seti@home total user credit
805 Change verticle offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
806 text to overlap. See also $offset.
810 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
811 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
814 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
815 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
818 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
821 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
822 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
823 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
824 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
825 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
826 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
827 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
828 which makes Conky to create its own window.
831 http://conky.sourceforge.net [http://conky.sourceforge.net]
833 http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky [http://www.source-
834 forge.net/projects/conky]
836 #conky on irc.freenode.net
839 The Conky dev team. What's up now??!