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 --enable-xft --enable-own-window --enable-proc-uptime
47 --enable-audacious --enable-bmpx --enable-seti --enable-hddtemp --en-
48 able-mpd --enable-xmms2 --enable-imlib2 --enable-portmon --enable-ml-
49 donkey --enable-debug --enable-double-buffer --enable-xdamage --en-
54 make install # Optional
58 Conky probably doesn't compile with compilers other than gcc and icc.
59 It doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99. It
60 uses a few things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strn-
61 casecmp(), optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89).
62 Crashes in file system statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't
65 You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need
66 it by passing --disable-own-window to configure -script.
70 Conky is generally very good on resources. However, certain objects in
71 Conky are harder on resources then others. In particular, the $tail,
72 $top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the
75 If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage,
76 unless you think something's seriously wrong (mem leak, etc.).
78 An easy way to force Conky to reload your ~/.conkyrc: "killall -SIGUSR1
79 conky". Saves you the trouble of having to kill and then restart.
81 IMPORTANT: For previous Conky users, Conky 1.3 no longer supports the
82 metar stuff. mdsplib was causing way too many problems. Hopefully
83 there'll be a better solution in Conky 2.x...
86 Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
90 Prints version and exits
94 Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom}_{left,right} or none
97 -b Use double buffering (eliminates "flicker")
101 Config file to load instead of $HOME/.conkyrc
104 -d Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background
111 -h Prints command line help and exits
114 -o Create own window to draw
118 Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t ' $uptime '
137 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS
138 Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
139 conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. If installing from De-
140 bian package, this should be in /usr/share/doc/conky/examples ("gunzip
141 conkyrc.sample.gz" to get conkyrc.sample).
143 You might want to copy it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying
144 it. Other configs can be found at http://conky.sf.net
147 Aligned position on screen, may be top_left, top_right, bot-
148 tom_left, bottom_right, or none
152 Boolean value, if true, Conky will be forked to background when
157 Set Conky on the bottom of all other applications
161 Border margin in pixels
165 Border width in pixels
169 The number of samples to average for CPU monitoring
173 Default color and border color
177 Default shading color and border's shading color
180 default_outline_color
181 Default outline color
185 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom-
186 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won't be
191 Draw borders around text?
195 Draw borders around graphs?
206 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
209 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as passing -x
213 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as passing -y
217 imap Default global IMAP server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
218 interval] [-f folder] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is
219 143, default folder is 'INBOX', default interval is 5 minutes.
220 If the password is supplied as '*', you will be prompted to en-
221 ter the password when Conky starts.
225 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
229 Mail spool for mail checking
233 Maximum width of window
236 minimum_size width (height)
237 Minimum size of window
241 Allow for the creation of at least this number of port monitors
242 (if 0 or not set, default is 16)
245 min_port_monitor_connections
246 Allow each port monitor to track at least this many connections
247 (if 0 or not set, default is 256)
251 Hostname for mldonkey stuff, defaults to localhost
255 Mldonkey port, 4001 default
259 Mldonkey login, default none
263 Mldonkey password, default none
279 The number of samples to average for net data
283 Force UTF8? requires XFT
287 Boolean, create own window to draw?
290 own_window_transparent
291 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
295 if own_window is yes, you may specify type normal, desktop or
296 override (default: normal). Desktop windows are special windows
297 that have no window decorations; are always visible on your
298 desktop; do not appear in your pager or taskbar; and are sticky
299 across all workspaces. Override windows are not under the con-
300 trol of the window manager. Hints are ignored. This type of win-
301 dow can be useful for certain situations.
304 own_window_colour colour
305 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
306 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
307 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
310 own_window_hints undecorated,below,above,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
311 If own_window is yes, you may use these window manager hints to
312 affect the way Conky displays. Notes: Use own_window_type desk-
313 top as another way to implement many of these hints implicitly.
314 If you use own_window_type override, window manager hints have
315 no meaning and are ignored.
319 Print text to stdout.
323 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
326 pop3 Default global POP3 server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
327 interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, default
328 interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*', you
329 will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
333 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
337 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
338 makes Conky run forever
342 Update interval in seconds
346 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
350 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
351 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
352 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
356 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
360 Manually set the WM_CLASS name. Defaults to "conky".
364 Alpha of Xft font. Must be a value at or between 1 and 0.
371 TEXT After this begins text to be formatted on screen
375 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
376 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, <http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html>.
377 Color can be also in #rrggbb format (hex). Note that when displaying
378 bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes
382 IP address for an interface
386 ACPI ac adapter state.
394 ACPI temperature in C.
398 ACPI temperature in F.
402 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
406 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
410 Right-justify text, with space of N
418 Display APM AC adapter status (FreeBSD only)
422 Display APM battery life in percent (FreeBSD only)
426 Display remaining APM battery life in hh:mm:ss or "unknown" if
427 AC adapterstatus is on-line or charging (FreeBSD only)
430 audacious_bar (height),(width)
435 Bitrate of current tune
439 Number of audio channels of current tune
443 Full path and filename of current tune
447 Sampling frequency of current tune
451 Total length of current tune as MM:SS
454 audacious_length_seconds
455 Total length of current tune in seconds
458 audacious_playlist_position
459 Playlist position of current tune
462 audacious_playlist_length
463 Number of tunes in playlist
467 Position of current tune (MM:SS)
470 audacious_position_seconds
471 Position of current tune in seconds
475 Player status (Playing/Paused/Stopped/Not running)
479 Title of current tune
483 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
484 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
488 Artist in current BMPx track
492 Album in current BMPx track
496 Title of the current BMPx track
500 Track number of the current BMPx track
504 Bitrate of the current BMPx track
508 URI of the current BMPx track
512 Amount of memory buffered
515 cached Amount of memory cached
519 Change drawing color to color
523 CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be
524 provided as an argument. ${cpu 0} is the total usage, and ${cpu
525 X} (X >= 1) are individual CPUs.
528 cpubar (cpu number) (height),(width)
529 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels. See
530 $cpu for more info on SMP.
533 cpugraph (cpu number) (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
535 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #. See
536 $cpu for more info on SMP.
539 diskio Displays current disk IO.
542 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
544 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
545 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
549 Download speed in kilobytes
553 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
556 downspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
558 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
559 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
562 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
566 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
567 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
568 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
572 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value be-
573 tween 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for the
574 bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
578 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
581 execi interval command
582 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
583 than update_interval in configuration. See also $texeci
586 execibar interval command
587 Same as execbar, except with an interval
590 execigraph interval command
591 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
595 Specify a different font. This new font will apply to the cur-
596 rent line and everything following. You can use a $font with no
597 arguments to change back to the default font (much like with
602 Returns CPU #n's frequency in MHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
603 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
607 Returns CPU #n's frequency in GHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
608 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
612 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
613 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
618 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
619 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
623 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
624 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
625 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
629 Free space on a file system available for users.
633 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
641 File system used space
644 goto x The next element will be printed at position 'x'.
647 hddtemp dev, (host,(port))
648 Displays temperature of a selected hard disk drive as reported
649 by the hddtemp daemon running on host:port. Default host is
650 127.0.0.1, default port is 7634.
653 head logfile lines (interval)
654 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
655 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30
656 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
660 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
663 iconv_start codeset_from codeset_to
664 Convert text from one codeset to another using GNU iconv. Needs
665 to be stopped with iconv_stop.
669 Stop iconv codeset conversion.
673 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
674 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
675 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
676 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
677 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
681 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
682 whether ac power is on, as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
683 human-readable). Beware that this is by default not enabled by
688 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
689 the bios version as listed in /proc/i8k.
693 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
694 the volume buttons status as listed in /proc/i8k.
698 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
699 the cpu temperature in Celsius, as reported by /proc/i8k.
703 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
704 the cpu temperature in Farenheit, as reported by /proc/i8k.
708 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
709 the left fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
710 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
715 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
716 the left fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to human-
717 readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in re-
722 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
723 the right fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
724 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
729 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
730 the right fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to hu-
731 man-readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
736 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
737 your laptop serial number as listed in /proc/i8k.
741 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
742 the version formatting of /proc/i8k.
746 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the fan speed.
750 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the temperatures from the IBM
751 temperature sensors (N=0..7) Sensor 0 is on the CPU, 3 is on the
756 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the "master" volume, con-
757 trolled by the volume keys (0-14).
761 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the brigtness of the laptops's
766 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
771 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
775 if_mounted (mountpoint)
776 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
777 and the matching $endif
781 Displays the number of messages in your global IMAP inbox by de-
782 fault. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
783 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
784 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, de-
785 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
786 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
790 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global IMAP inbox
791 by default. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
792 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
793 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, de-
794 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
795 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
798 kernel Kernel version
802 Get the link status for wireless connections
806 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
807 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
811 Machine, i686 for example
814 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
815 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
819 mem Amount of memory in use
822 membar (height),(width)
823 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
826 memmax Total amount of memory
830 Percentage of memory in use
834 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
838 Album in current MPD song
841 mpd_bar (height),(width)
842 Bar of mpd's progress
846 Bitrate of current song
850 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
854 Title of current MPD song
870 Percent of song's progress
874 Random status (On/Off)
878 Repeat status (On/Off)
882 Prints the MPD track field
886 Prints the MPD name field
890 Prints the file name of the current MPD song
894 Prints the song name in either the form "artist - title" or file
895 name, depending on whats available
899 Unread mail count in mail spool.
911 If running on Apple powerbook/ibook, display information on bat-
912 tery status. The item parameter specifies, what information to
913 display. Exactly one item must be specified. Valid items are:
915 status: Display if battery is fully charged, charging, discharg-
916 ing or absent (running on AC)
917 percent: Display charge of battery in percent, if charging or
918 discharging. Nothing will be displayed, if battery is fully
920 time: Display the time remaining until the battery will be fully
921 charged or discharged at current rate. Nothing is displayed, if
922 battery is absent or if it's present but fully charged and not
927 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global POP3 inbox
928 by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes seperately by
929 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
930 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, de-
931 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
932 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
936 Displays the amount of space (in MiB, 2^20) used in your global
937 POP3 inbox by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes
938 seperately by passing arguments to this object. Arguments are:
939 "host user pass [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default
940 port is 110, default interval is 5 minutes. If the password is
941 supplied as '*', you will be prompted to enter the password when
945 pre_exec shell command
946 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
947 and puts output as text.
951 Total processes (sleeping and running)
955 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
963 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
966 swapbar (height),(width)
967 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
970 swap Amount of swap in use
978 Percentage of swap in use
982 System name, Linux for example
985 tcp_portmon port_begin port_end item (index) (ip4 only at present)
986 TCP port monitor for specified local ports. Port numbers must be
987 in the range 1 to 65535. Valid items are:
989 count - total number of connections in the range
990 rip - remote ip address
991 rhost - remote host name
992 rport - remote port number
993 rservice - remote service name from /etc/services
994 lip - local ip address
995 lhost - local host name
996 lport - local port number
997 lservice - local service name from /etc/services
999 The connection index provides you with access to each connection
1000 in the port monitor. The monitor will return information for in-
1001 dex values from 0 to n-1 connections. Values higher than n-1 are
1002 simply ignored. For the "count" item, the connection index must
1003 be omitted. It is required for all other items.
1006 ${tcp_portmon 6881 6999 count} - displays the number of connec-
1007 tions in the bittorrent port range
1008 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 0} - displays the remote host ip of the
1009 first sshd connection
1010 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 9} - displays the remote host ip of the
1011 tenth sshd connection
1012 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rhost 0} - displays the remote host name of
1013 the first connection on a privileged port
1014 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rport 4} - displays the remote host port of
1015 the fifth connection on a privileged port
1016 ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 lservice 14} - displays the local service
1017 name of the fifteenth connection in the range of all ports
1019 Note that port monitor variables which share the same port range
1020 actually refer to the same monitor, so many references to a sin-
1021 gle port range for different items and different indexes all use
1022 the same monitor internally. In other words, the program avoids
1023 creating redundant monitors.
1025 texeci interval command
1026 Runs a command at an interval inside a thread and displays the
1027 output. Same as $execi, except the command is run inside a
1028 thread. Use this if you have a slow script to keep Conky updat-
1029 ing. You should make the interval slightly longer then the time
1030 it takes your script to execute. For example, if you have a
1031 script that take 5 seconds to execute, you should make the in-
1032 terval at least 6 seconds. See also $execi.
1036 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
1039 tab (width, (start))
1040 Puts a tab of the specified width, starting from column 'start'.
1043 tail logfile lines (interval)
1044 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
1045 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30 lines
1046 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
1050 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
1055 Display time in UTC (universal coordinate time).
1058 tztime (timezone) (format)
1059 Local time for specified timezone, see man strftime to get more
1060 information about format. The timezone argument is specified in
1061 similar fashion as TZ environment variable. For hints, look in
1062 /usr/share/zoneinfo. e.g. US/Pacific, Europe/Zurich, etc.
1066 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
1067 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has al-
1068 ready done that before conky has started.
1072 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
1073 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu us-
1074 age, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
1075 "pid", "cpu", and "mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
1080 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
1084 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
1087 updates Number of updates
1092 Upload speed in kilobytes
1096 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
1099 upspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
1101 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
1102 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
1109 Uptime in a shorter format
1113 Seti@home current progress
1116 seti_progbar (height),(width)
1117 Seti@home current progress bar
1121 Seti@home total user credit
1125 Change vertical offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
1126 text to overlap. See also $offset.
1130 Returns CPU #n's voltage in mV. CPUs are counted from 1. If
1131 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1135 Returns CPU #n's voltage in V. CPUs are counted from 1. If omit-
1136 ted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1140 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
1141 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
1142 sec update interval.
1144 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
1145 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
1148 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
1151 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
1152 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
1153 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
1154 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
1155 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
1156 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
1157 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
1158 which makes Conky to create its own window.
1161 <http://conky.sourceforge.net>
1163 <http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky>
1165 #conky on irc.freenode.net
1168 The Conky dev team. What's up now!