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 de-
21 veloper 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 Svn.
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 Svn
44 ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --in-
45 fodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc --local-
46 statedir=/var/lib --disable-own-window --enable-audacious --enable-bmpx
47 --disable-hddtemp --disable-mpd --enable-xmms2 --disable-portmon --dis-
48 able-network --enable-debug --disable-x11 --disable-double-buffer
49 --disable-xdamage --disable-xft
53 make install # Optional
57 Conky probably doesn't compile with compilers other than gcc and icc.
58 It doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It
59 uses a few things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strn-
60 casecmp(), optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89).
61 Crashes in file system statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't
64 You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need
65 it by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
69 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
70 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
71 $top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the
74 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
75 unless you think something's seriously wrong (mem leak, etc.).
77 An easy way to force Conky to reload your ~/.conkyrc: "killall -SIGUSR1
78 conky". Saves you the trouble of having to kill and then restart.
80 IMPORTANT: For previous Conky users, Conky 1.3 no longer supports the
81 metar stuff. mdsplib was causing way too many problems. Hopefully
82 there'll be a better solution in Conky 2.x...
85 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
89 Prints version and exits
93 Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right} or none
96 -b Use double buffering (eliminates "flicker")
100 Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
103 -d Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background
110 -h Prints command line help and exits
113 -o Create own window to draw
117 Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t ' $uptime '
136 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
137 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
138 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. If installing from De-
139 bian package, this should be in /usr/share/doc/conky/examples ("gunzip
140 conkyrc.sample.gz" to get conkyrc.sample).
142 You might want to copy it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying
143 it. Other configs can be found at http://conky.sf.net
146 Aligned position on screen, may be top_left, top_right, bot-
147 tom_left, bottom_right, or none
151 Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to background when
156 Border margin in pixels
160 Border width in pixels
164 The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
168 Default color and border color
171 default_outline_color
172 Default outline color
176 Default shading color and border's shading color
180 Act as client and connect to libdexter server for remote moni-
185 Full path to libdexter configuration file (default search order:
186 $HOME/.dexterrc; /etc/libdexter/dexter.conf)
190 Act as server for libdexter services?
194 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom-
195 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won't be
200 Draw borders around text?
204 Draw borders around graphs?
215 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
218 gap_x Gap, in pixels, between right or left border of screen, same as
219 passing -x at command line, e.g. gap_x 10
222 gap_y Gap, in pixels, between top or bottom border of screen, same as
223 passing -y at command line, e.g. gap_y 10.
226 imap Default global IMAP server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
227 interval] [-f folder] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is
228 143, default folder is 'INBOX', default interval is 5 minutes.
229 If the password is supplied as '*', you will be prompted to en-
230 ter the password when Conky starts.
234 Mail spool for mail checking
237 max_port_monitor_connections
238 Allow each port monitor to track at most this many connections
239 (if 0 or not set, default is 256)
243 Maximum number of special things, e.g. fonts, offsets, aligns,
244 etc. (default is 512)
248 Maximum size of user text buffer, i.e. layout below TEXT line in
249 config file (default is 16384 bytes)
253 Maximum width of window
256 minimum_size width (height)
257 Minimum size of window
273 The number of samples to average for net data
277 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
281 Force UTF8? requires XFT
285 Boolean, create own window to draw?
289 Manually set the WM_CLASS name. Defaults to "Conky".
292 own_window_colour colour
293 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
294 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
295 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
298 own_window_hints undecorated,below,above,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
299 If own_window is yes, you may use these window manager hints to
300 affect the way Conky displays. Notes: Use own_window_type desk-
301 top as another way to implement many of these hints implicitly.
302 If you use own_window_type override, window manager hints have
303 no meaning and are ignored.
307 Manually set the window name. Defaults to "<hostname> - conky".
310 own_window_transparent
311 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
315 if own_window is yes, you may specify type normal, desktop or
316 override (default: normal). Desktop windows are special windows
317 that have no window decorations; are always visible on your
318 desktop; do not appear in your pager or taskbar; and are sticky
319 across all workspaces. Override windows are not under the con-
320 trol of the window manager. Hints are ignored. This type of win-
321 dow can be useful for certain situations.
325 Print text to stdout.
329 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
332 pop3 Default global POP3 server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
333 interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, default
334 interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*', you
335 will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
339 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
343 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
344 makes Conky run forever
348 Update interval in seconds
352 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
356 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
357 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
358 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
362 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
366 Alpha of Xft font. Must be a value at or between 1 and 0.
373 TEXT After this begins text to be formatted on screen
377 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
378 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, <http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html>.
379 Color can be also in #rrggbb format (hex). Note that when displaying
380 bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes
384 IP address for an interface
388 ACPI ac adapter state.
396 ACPI temperature in C.
400 ACPI temperature in F.
404 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
408 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
412 Right-justify text, with space of N
420 Display APM AC adapter status (FreeBSD only)
424 Display APM battery life in percent (FreeBSD only)
428 Display remaining APM battery life in hh:mm:ss or "unknown" if
429 AC adapterstatus is on-line or charging (FreeBSD only)
432 audacious_bar (height),(width)
437 Bitrate of current tune
441 Number of audio channels of current tune
445 Full path and filename of current tune
449 Sampling frequency of current tune
453 Total length of current tune as MM:SS
456 audacious_length_seconds
457 Total length of current tune in seconds
460 audacious_playlist_position
461 Playlist position of current tune
464 audacious_playlist_length
465 Number of tunes in playlist
469 Position of current tune (MM:SS)
472 audacious_position_seconds
473 Position of current tune in seconds
477 Player status (Playing/Paused/Stopped/Not running)
480 audacious_title (max length)
481 Title of current tune with optional maximum length specifier
485 Battery status and remaining percentage capacity of ACPI or APM
486 battery. ACPI battery number can be given as argument (default
491 Battery charge/discharge time remaining of ACPI battery. ACPI
492 battery number can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
496 Artist in current BMPx track
500 Album in current BMPx track
504 Title of the current BMPx track
508 Track number of the current BMPx track
512 Bitrate of the current BMPx track
516 URI of the current BMPx track
520 Amount of memory buffered
523 cached Amount of memory cached
527 Change drawing color to color
531 CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be
532 provided as an argument. ${cpu 0} is the total usage, and ${cpu
533 X} (X >= 1) are individual CPUs.
536 cpubar (cpu number) (height),(width)
537 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels. See
538 $cpu for more info on SMP.
541 cpugraph (cpu number) (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
543 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #. See
544 $cpu for more info on SMP.
547 diskio Displays current disk IO.
550 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
552 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
553 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
557 Displays current disk IO for reads.
560 diskio_readgraph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
562 Disk IO graph for reads, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
563 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
567 Displays current disk IO for writes.
570 diskio_writegraph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
572 Disk IO graph for writes, colours defined in hex, minus the #.
573 If scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
577 Download speed in kilobytes
581 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
584 downspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
586 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
587 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
590 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
594 Current entropy available for crypto freaks
597 entropy_bar (height),(width)
598 Normalized bar of available entropy for crypto freaks
602 Total size of system entropy pool for crypto freaks
606 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
607 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
608 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
612 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value be-
613 tween 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for the
614 bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
618 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
621 execi interval command
622 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
623 than update_interval in configuration. See also $texeci
626 execibar interval command
627 Same as execbar, except with an interval
630 execigraph interval command
631 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
635 Specify a different font. This new font will apply to the cur-
636 rent line and everything following. You can use a $font with no
637 arguments to change back to the default font (much like with
642 Returns CPU #n's frequency in MHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
643 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
647 Returns CPU #n's frequency in GHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
648 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
652 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
653 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
658 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
659 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
663 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
664 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
665 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
669 Free space on a file system available for users.
673 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
681 File system used space
684 goto x The next element will be printed at position 'x'.
687 hddtemp dev, (host,(port))
688 Displays temperature of a selected hard disk drive as reported
689 by the hddtemp daemon running on host:port. Default host is
690 127.0.0.1, default port is 7634.
693 head logfile lines (interval)
694 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
695 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30
696 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
700 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
703 iconv_start codeset_from codeset_to
704 Convert text from one codeset to another using GNU iconv. Needs
705 to be stopped with iconv_stop.
709 Stop iconv codeset conversion.
713 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
714 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
715 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
716 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
717 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
721 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
722 whether ac power is on, as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
723 human-readable). Beware that this is by default not enabled by
728 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
729 the bios version as listed in /proc/i8k.
733 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
734 the volume buttons status as listed in /proc/i8k.
738 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
739 the cpu temperature in Celsius, as reported by /proc/i8k.
743 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
744 the cpu temperature in Fahrenheit, as reported by /proc/i8k.
748 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
749 the left fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
750 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
755 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
756 the left fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to human-
757 readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in re-
762 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
763 the right fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
764 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
769 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
770 the right fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to hu-
771 man-readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
776 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
777 your laptop serial number as listed in /proc/i8k.
781 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
782 the version formatting of /proc/i8k.
786 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the fan speed.
790 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the temperatures from the IBM
791 temperature sensors (N=0..7) Sensor 0 is on the CPU, 3 is on the
796 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the "master" volume, con-
797 trolled by the volume keys (0-14).
801 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the brigtness of the laptops's
806 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
811 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
815 if_mounted (mountpoint)
816 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
817 and the matching $endif
821 Displays the number of messages in your global IMAP inbox by de-
822 fault. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
823 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
824 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 143, de-
825 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
826 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
830 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global IMAP inbox
831 by default. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
832 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
833 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 143, de-
834 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
835 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
838 kernel Kernel version
842 Get the link status for wireless connections
846 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
847 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
851 Machine, i686 for example
854 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
855 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
859 mem Amount of memory in use
862 membar (height),(width)
863 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
866 memmax Total amount of memory
870 Percentage of memory in use
874 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
878 Album in current MPD song
881 mpd_bar (height),(width)
882 Bar of mpd's progress
886 Bitrate of current song
890 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
894 Title of current MPD song
910 Percent of song's progress
914 Random status (On/Off)
918 Repeat status (On/Off)
922 Prints the MPD track field
926 Prints the MPD name field
930 Prints the file name of the current MPD song
934 Prints the song name in either the form "artist - title" or file
935 name, depending on whats available
939 Unread mail count in mail spool.
951 If running on Apple powerbook/ibook, display information on bat-
952 tery status. The item parameter specifies, what information to
953 display. Exactly one item must be specified. Valid items are:
955 status: Display if battery is fully charged, charging, discharg-
956 ing or absent (running on AC)
957 percent: Display charge of battery in percent, if charging or
958 discharging. Nothing will be displayed, if battery is fully
960 time: Display the time remaining until the battery will be fully
961 charged or discharged at current rate. Nothing is displayed, if
962 battery is absent or if it's present but fully charged and not
967 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global POP3 inbox
968 by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes seperately by
969 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
970 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, de-
971 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
972 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
976 Displays the amount of space (in MiB, 2^20) used in your global
977 POP3 inbox by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes
978 seperately by passing arguments to this object. Arguments are:
979 "host user pass [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default
980 port is 110, default interval is 5 minutes. If the password is
981 supplied as '*', you will be prompted to enter the password when
985 pre_exec shell command
986 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
987 and puts output as text.
991 Total processes (sleeping and running)
995 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
1003 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
1006 swapbar (height),(width)
1007 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
1010 swap Amount of swap in use
1014 Total amount of swap
1018 Percentage of swap in use
1022 System name, Linux for example
1025 tcp_portmon port_begin port_end item (index) (ip4 only at present)
1026 TCP port monitor for specified local ports. Port numbers must be
1027 in the range 1 to 65535. Valid items are:
1029 count - total number of connections in the range
1030 rip - remote ip address
1031 rhost - remote host name
1032 rport - remote port number
1033 rservice - remote service name from /etc/services
1034 lip - local ip address
1035 lhost - local host name
1036 lport - local port number
1037 lservice - local service name from /etc/services
1039 The connection index provides you with access to each connection
1040 in the port monitor. The monitor will return information for in-
1041 dex values from 0 to n-1 connections. Values higher than n-1 are
1042 simply ignored. For the "count" item, the connection index must
1043 be omitted. It is required for all other items.
1046 ${tcp_portmon 6881 6999 count} - displays the number of connec-
1047 tions in the bittorrent port range
1048 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 0} - displays the remote host ip of the
1049 first sshd connection
1050 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 9} - displays the remote host ip of the
1051 tenth sshd connection
1052 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rhost 0} - displays the remote host name of
1053 the first connection on a privileged port
1054 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rport 4} - displays the remote host port of
1055 the fifth connection on a privileged port
1056 ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 lservice 14} - displays the local service
1057 name of the fifteenth connection in the range of all ports
1059 Note that port monitor variables which share the same port range
1060 actually refer to the same monitor, so many references to a sin-
1061 gle port range for different items and different indexes all use
1062 the same monitor internally. In other words, the program avoids
1063 creating redundant monitors.
1065 texeci interval command
1066 Runs a command at an interval inside a thread and displays the
1067 output. Same as $execi, except the command is run inside a
1068 thread. Use this if you have a slow script to keep Conky updat-
1069 ing. You should make the interval slightly longer then the time
1070 it takes your script to execute. For example, if you have a
1071 script that take 5 seconds to execute, you should make the in-
1072 terval at least 6 seconds. See also $execi.
1076 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
1079 tab (width, (start))
1080 Puts a tab of the specified width, starting from column 'start'.
1083 tail logfile lines (interval)
1084 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
1085 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30 lines
1086 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
1090 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
1095 Display time in UTC (universal coordinate time).
1098 tztime (timezone) (format)
1099 Local time for specified timezone, see man strftime to get more
1100 information about format. The timezone argument is specified in
1101 similar fashion as TZ environment variable. For hints, look in
1102 /usr/share/zoneinfo. e.g. US/Pacific, Europe/Zurich, etc.
1106 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
1107 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has al-
1108 ready done that before conky has started.
1112 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
1113 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu us-
1114 age, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
1115 "pid", "cpu", and "mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
1120 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
1124 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
1127 updates Number of updates
1132 Upload speed in kilobytes
1136 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
1139 upspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
1141 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
1142 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
1149 Uptime in a shorter format
1153 Change vertical offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
1154 text to overlap. See also $offset.
1158 Returns CPU #n's voltage in mV. CPUs are counted from 1. If
1159 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1163 Returns CPU #n's voltage in V. CPUs are counted from 1. If omit-
1164 ted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1168 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
1169 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
1170 sec update interval.
1172 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
1173 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
1176 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
1179 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
1180 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
1181 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
1182 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
1183 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
1184 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
1185 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
1186 which makes Conky to create its own window.
1189 <http://conky.sourceforge.net>
1191 <http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky>
1193 #conky on irc.freenode.net
1196 The Conky dev team. What's up now!