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-hddtemp --enable-mpd --en-
48 able-xmms2 --enable-imlib2 --enable-portmon --enable-debug --en-
49 able-double-buffer --enable-xdamage --enable-x11
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 Use the Xdbe extension? (eliminates flicker) It is highly recom-
181 mended to use own window with this one so double buffer won't be
186 Draw borders around text?
190 Draw borders around graphs?
201 font Font name in X, xfontsel can be used to get a nice font
204 gap_x Gap between right or left border of screen, same as passing -x
208 gap_y Gap between top or bottom border of screen, same as passing -y
212 imap Default global IMAP server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
213 interval] [-f folder] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is
214 143, default folder is 'INBOX', default interval is 5 minutes.
215 If the password is supplied as '*', you will be prompted to en-
216 ter the password when Conky starts.
220 Mail spool for mail checking
224 Maximum size of user text buffer, i.e. layout below TEXT line in
225 config file (default is 16384 bytes)
229 Maximum width of window
232 minimum_size width (height)
233 Minimum size of window
237 Allow for the creation of at least this number of port monitors
238 (if 0 or not set, default is 16)
241 min_port_monitor_connections
242 Allow each port monitor to track at least this many connections
243 (if 0 or not set, default is 256)
259 The number of samples to average for net data
263 Substract (file system) buffers from used memory?
267 Force UTF8? requires XFT
271 Boolean, create own window to draw?
274 own_window_transparent
275 Boolean, set pseudo-transparency?
279 if own_window is yes, you may specify type normal, desktop or
280 override (default: normal). Desktop windows are special windows
281 that have no window decorations; are always visible on your
282 desktop; do not appear in your pager or taskbar; and are sticky
283 across all workspaces. Override windows are not under the con-
284 trol of the window manager. Hints are ignored. This type of win-
285 dow can be useful for certain situations.
288 own_window_colour colour
289 If own_window_transparent no, set a specified background colour
290 (defaults to black). Takes either a hex value (#ffffff) or a
291 valid RGB name (see /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt)
294 own_window_hints undecorated,below,above,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
295 If own_window is yes, you may use these window manager hints to
296 affect the way Conky displays. Notes: Use own_window_type desk-
297 top as another way to implement many of these hints implicitly.
298 If you use own_window_type override, window manager hints have
299 no meaning and are ignored.
303 Print text to stdout.
307 Pad percentages to this many decimals (0 = no padding)
310 pop3 Default global POP3 server. Arguments are: "host user pass [-i
311 interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, default
312 interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*', you
313 will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
317 Border stippling (dashing) in pixels
321 Total number of times for Conky to update before quitting. Zero
322 makes Conky run forever
326 Update interval in seconds
330 Boolean value, if true, text is rendered in upper case
334 Adds spaces after certain objects to stop them from moving other
335 things around. Note that this only helps if you are using a mono
336 font, such as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
340 Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
344 Manually set the WM_CLASS name. Defaults to "conky".
348 Alpha of Xft font. Must be a value at or between 1 and 0.
355 TEXT After this begins text to be formatted on screen
359 Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
360 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, <http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html>.
361 Color can be also in #rrggbb format (hex). Note that when displaying
362 bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so 1M really means 1024*1024 bytes
366 IP address for an interface
370 ACPI ac adapter state.
378 ACPI temperature in C.
382 ACPI temperature in F.
386 CPU temperature from therm_adt746x
390 Fan speed from therm_adt746x
394 Right-justify text, with space of N
402 Display APM AC adapter status (FreeBSD only)
406 Display APM battery life in percent (FreeBSD only)
410 Display remaining APM battery life in hh:mm:ss or "unknown" if
411 AC adapterstatus is on-line or charging (FreeBSD only)
414 audacious_bar (height),(width)
419 Bitrate of current tune
423 Number of audio channels of current tune
427 Full path and filename of current tune
431 Sampling frequency of current tune
435 Total length of current tune as MM:SS
438 audacious_length_seconds
439 Total length of current tune in seconds
442 audacious_playlist_position
443 Playlist position of current tune
446 audacious_playlist_length
447 Number of tunes in playlist
451 Position of current tune (MM:SS)
454 audacious_position_seconds
455 Position of current tune in seconds
459 Player status (Playing/Paused/Stopped/Not running)
463 Title of current tune
467 Remaining capacity in ACPI or APM battery. ACPI battery number
468 can be given as argument (default is BAT0).
472 Artist in current BMPx track
476 Album in current BMPx track
480 Title of the current BMPx track
484 Track number of the current BMPx track
488 Bitrate of the current BMPx track
492 URI of the current BMPx track
496 Amount of memory buffered
499 cached Amount of memory cached
503 Change drawing color to color
507 CPU usage in percents. For SMP machines, the CPU number can be
508 provided as an argument. ${cpu 0} is the total usage, and ${cpu
509 X} (X >= 1) are individual CPUs.
512 cpubar (cpu number) (height),(width)
513 Bar that shows CPU usage, height is bar's height in pixels. See
514 $cpu for more info on SMP.
517 cpugraph (cpu number) (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
519 CPU usage graph, with optional colours in hex, minus the #. See
520 $cpu for more info on SMP.
523 diskio Displays current disk IO.
526 diskiograph (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour 2)
528 Disk IO graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If scale is
529 non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
533 Download speed in kilobytes
537 Download speed in kilobytes with one decimal
540 downspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient
542 Download speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
543 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
546 else Text to show if any of the above are not true
550 Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warn-
551 ing: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd
552 recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.
556 Same as exec, except if the first value return is a value be-
557 tween 0-100, it will use that number for a bar. The size for the
558 bar is currently fixed, but that may change in the future.
562 Same as execbar, but graphs values.
565 execi interval command
566 Same as exec but with specific interval. Interval can't be less
567 than update_interval in configuration. See also $texeci
570 execibar interval command
571 Same as execbar, except with an interval
574 execigraph interval command
575 Same as execigraph, but takes an interval arg graphs values
579 Specify a different font. This new font will apply to the cur-
580 rent line and everything following. You can use a $font with no
581 arguments to change back to the default font (much like with
586 Returns CPU #n's frequency in MHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
587 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
591 Returns CPU #n's frequency in GHz. CPUs are counted from 1. If
592 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
596 Returns CPU frequency in MHz, but is calculated by counting to
597 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
602 Returns CPU frequency in GHz, but is calculated by counting to
603 clock cycles to complete an instruction. Only available for
607 fs_bar (height),(width) fs
608 Bar that shows how much space is used on a file system. height
609 is the height in pixels. fs is any file on that file system.
613 Free space on a file system available for users.
617 Free percentage of space on a file system available for users.
625 File system used space
628 goto x The next element will be printed at position 'x'.
631 hddtemp dev, (host,(port))
632 Displays temperature of a selected hard disk drive as reported
633 by the hddtemp daemon running on host:port. Default host is
634 127.0.0.1, default port is 7634.
637 head logfile lines (interval)
638 Displays first N lines of supplied text text file. If interval
639 is not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30
640 lines can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
644 Horizontal line, height is the height in pixels
647 iconv_start codeset_from codeset_to
648 Convert text from one codeset to another using GNU iconv. Needs
649 to be stopped with iconv_stop.
653 Stop iconv codeset conversion.
657 I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev may be omitted if you
658 have only one I2C device. type is either in (or vol) meaning
659 voltage, fan meaning fan or temp/tempf (first in C, second in F)
660 meaning temperature. n is number of the sensor. See
661 /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on your local computer.
665 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
666 whether ac power is on, as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to
667 human-readable). Beware that this is by default not enabled by
672 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
673 the bios version as listed in /proc/i8k.
677 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
678 the volume buttons status as listed in /proc/i8k.
682 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
683 the cpu temperature in Celsius, as reported by /proc/i8k.
687 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
688 the cpu temperature in Farenheit, as reported by /proc/i8k.
692 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
693 the left fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
694 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
699 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
700 the left fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to human-
701 readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in re-
706 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
707 the right fan's rate of rotation, in revolutions per minute as
708 listed in /proc/i8k. Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans
713 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
714 the right fan status as listed in /proc/i8k (translated to hu-
715 man-readable). Beware, some laptops i8k reports these fans in
720 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
721 your laptop serial number as listed in /proc/i8k.
725 If running the i8k kernel driver for Inspiron laptops, displays
726 the version formatting of /proc/i8k.
730 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the fan speed.
734 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the temperatures from the IBM
735 temperature sensors (N=0..7) Sensor 0 is on the CPU, 3 is on the
740 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the "master" volume, con-
741 trolled by the volume keys (0-14).
745 If running the IBM ACPI, displays the brigtness of the laptops's
750 if PROCESS is running, display everything if_running and the
755 if FILE exists, display everything between if_existing and the
759 if_mounted (mountpoint)
760 if MOUNTPOINT is mounted, display everything between if_mounted
761 and the matching $endif
765 Displays the number of messages in your global IMAP inbox by de-
766 fault. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
767 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
768 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 143, de-
769 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
770 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
774 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global IMAP inbox
775 by default. You can define individual IMAP inboxes seperately by
776 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
777 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 143, de-
778 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
779 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
782 kernel Kernel version
786 Get the link status for wireless connections
790 (1,2,3)> System load average, 1 is for past 1 minute, 2 for past
791 5 minutes and 3 for past 15 minutes.
795 Machine, i686 for example
798 mails Mail count in mail spool. You can use program like fetchmail to
799 get mails from some server using your favourite protocol. See
803 mem Amount of memory in use
806 membar (height),(width)
807 Bar that shows amount of memory in use
810 memmax Total amount of memory
814 Percentage of memory in use
818 Artist in current MPD song must be enabled at compile
822 Album in current MPD song
825 mpd_bar (height),(width)
826 Bar of mpd's progress
830 Bitrate of current song
834 Playing, stopped, et cetera.
838 Title of current MPD song
854 Percent of song's progress
858 Random status (On/Off)
862 Repeat status (On/Off)
866 Prints the MPD track field
870 Prints the MPD name field
874 Prints the file name of the current MPD song
878 Prints the song name in either the form "artist - title" or file
879 name, depending on whats available
883 Unread mail count in mail spool.
895 If running on Apple powerbook/ibook, display information on bat-
896 tery status. The item parameter specifies, what information to
897 display. Exactly one item must be specified. Valid items are:
899 status: Display if battery is fully charged, charging, discharg-
900 ing or absent (running on AC)
901 percent: Display charge of battery in percent, if charging or
902 discharging. Nothing will be displayed, if battery is fully
904 time: Display the time remaining until the battery will be fully
905 charged or discharged at current rate. Nothing is displayed, if
906 battery is absent or if it's present but fully charged and not
911 Displays the number of unseen messages in your global POP3 inbox
912 by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes seperately by
913 passing arguments to this object. Arguments are: "host user pass
914 [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default port is 110, de-
915 fault interval is 5 minutes. If the password is supplied as '*',
916 you will be prompted to enter the password when Conky starts.
920 Displays the amount of space (in MiB, 2^20) used in your global
921 POP3 inbox by default. You can define individual POP3 inboxes
922 seperately by passing arguments to this object. Arguments are:
923 "host user pass [-i interval] [-p port] [-e command]". Default
924 port is 110, default interval is 5 minutes. If the password is
925 supplied as '*', you will be prompted to enter the password when
929 pre_exec shell command
930 Executes a shell command one time before conky displays anything
931 and puts output as text.
935 Total processes (sleeping and running)
939 Running processes (not sleeping), requires Linux 2.6
947 Stippled (dashed) horizontal line
950 swapbar (height),(width)
951 Bar that shows amount of swap in use
954 swap Amount of swap in use
962 Percentage of swap in use
966 System name, Linux for example
969 tcp_portmon port_begin port_end item (index) (ip4 only at present)
970 TCP port monitor for specified local ports. Port numbers must be
971 in the range 1 to 65535. Valid items are:
973 count - total number of connections in the range
974 rip - remote ip address
975 rhost - remote host name
976 rport - remote port number
977 rservice - remote service name from /etc/services
978 lip - local ip address
979 lhost - local host name
980 lport - local port number
981 lservice - local service name from /etc/services
983 The connection index provides you with access to each connection
984 in the port monitor. The monitor will return information for in-
985 dex values from 0 to n-1 connections. Values higher than n-1 are
986 simply ignored. For the "count" item, the connection index must
987 be omitted. It is required for all other items.
990 ${tcp_portmon 6881 6999 count} - displays the number of connec-
991 tions in the bittorrent port range
992 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 0} - displays the remote host ip of the
993 first sshd connection
994 ${tcp_portmon 22 22 rip 9} - displays the remote host ip of the
995 tenth sshd connection
996 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rhost 0} - displays the remote host name of
997 the first connection on a privileged port
998 ${tcp_portmon 1 1024 rport 4} - displays the remote host port of
999 the fifth connection on a privileged port
1000 ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 lservice 14} - displays the local service
1001 name of the fifteenth connection in the range of all ports
1003 Note that port monitor variables which share the same port range
1004 actually refer to the same monitor, so many references to a sin-
1005 gle port range for different items and different indexes all use
1006 the same monitor internally. In other words, the program avoids
1007 creating redundant monitors.
1009 texeci interval command
1010 Runs a command at an interval inside a thread and displays the
1011 output. Same as $execi, except the command is run inside a
1012 thread. Use this if you have a slow script to keep Conky updat-
1013 ing. You should make the interval slightly longer then the time
1014 it takes your script to execute. For example, if you have a
1015 script that take 5 seconds to execute, you should make the in-
1016 terval at least 6 seconds. See also $execi.
1020 Move text over by N pixels. See also $voffset.
1023 tab (width, (start))
1024 Puts a tab of the specified width, starting from column 'start'.
1027 tail logfile lines (interval)
1028 Displays last N lines of supplied text text file. If interval is
1029 not supplied, Conky assumes 2x Conky's interval. Max of 30 lines
1030 can be displayed, or until the text buffer is filled.
1034 Local time, see man strftime to get more information about for-
1039 Display time in UTC (universal coordinate time).
1042 tztime (timezone) (format)
1043 Local time for specified timezone, see man strftime to get more
1044 information about format. The timezone argument is specified in
1045 similar fashion as TZ environment variable. For hints, look in
1046 /usr/share/zoneinfo. e.g. US/Pacific, Europe/Zurich, etc.
1050 Total download, overflows at 4 GB on Linux with 32-bit arch and
1051 there doesn't seem to be a way to know how many times it has al-
1052 ready done that before conky has started.
1056 This takes arguments in the form:top (name) (number) Basically,
1057 processes are ranked from highest to lowest in terms of cpu us-
1058 age, which is what (num) represents. The types are: "name",
1059 "pid", "cpu", and "mem". There can be a max of 10 processes
1064 Same as top, except sorted by mem usage instead of cpu
1068 Total upload, this one too, may overflow
1071 updates Number of updates
1076 Upload speed in kilobytes
1080 Upload speed in kilobytes with one decimal
1083 upspeedgraph net (height),(width) (gradient colour 1) (gradient colour
1085 Upload speed graph, colours defined in hex, minus the #. If
1086 scale is non-zero, it becomes the scale for the graph.
1093 Uptime in a shorter format
1097 Change vertical offset by N pixels. Negative values will cause
1098 text to overlap. See also $offset.
1102 Returns CPU #n's voltage in mV. CPUs are counted from 1. If
1103 omitted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1107 Returns CPU #n's voltage in V. CPUs are counted from 1. If omit-
1108 ted, the parameter defaults to 1.
1112 conky -t '${time %D %H:%m}' -o -u 30
1113 Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30
1114 sec update interval.
1116 conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d
1117 Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).
1120 ~/.conkyrc default configuration file
1123 Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with
1124 all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has
1125 been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
1126 disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
1127 show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in
1128 Conky to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree
1129 useful to find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument
1130 which makes Conky to create its own window.
1133 <http://conky.sourceforge.net>
1135 <http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky>
1137 #conky on irc.freenode.net
1140 The Conky dev team. What's up now!