Installing Glances on Linux

What is Glances System Monitoring?

Glances is a really cool Linux monitoring tool written in Python and available on nearly all Linux Distributions. The project’s full title is Glances – an eye on your system, and it is a popular Github project written by NicoLargo and maintained by the community.

It is a great tool for monitoring a server. It gives detailed information about CPU, MEM, DISK, and server performance, it can also be hosted as a webserver which is a great feature, allowing system administrators to give developers real-time monitoring of a platform during upgrades or peak season.

Click here for GitHub site.

How to install Glances on CentOS 7 / Red Hat 7 / Red Hat 8 / Rocky Linux

Here is a quick guide to installing Glances in CentOS 7.

Step 1 – Install the Pre-Reqs

It is recommended to complete a yum update before proceeding; this ensures that any dependencies are at the right level.

yum update -y

Next install wget if you do not already have it

yum install wget -y

Step 2 – Add the Fedora Repo That Contains Glances

Add the fedora repo to CentOS – this is not a default repository so you have to manually add it.

wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/Packages/e/epel-release-7-11.noarch.rpm

Install the package with RPM.

rpm -ivh epel-release-7-11.noarch.rpm

Step 3 – Install glances

yum install glances -y

Step 4 – Start Glances

glances

How to install Glances on Ubuntu / Debian

Step 1: Update the Package List

Before installing any new software, it’s a good practice to update the package list to ensure you are installing the latest version. Open a terminal and run the following command:

sudo apt update

Step 2: Install Glances

Next, install Glances using the following command:

sudo apt install glances

Step 3: Verify the Installation

After the installation is complete, you can verify that Glances was installed correctly by running the following command:

glances -V

This command should return the version of Glances that is currently installed on your system.

Step 4: Run Glances

Now, you can run Glances to monitor your system. Use the following command to start Glances:

glances

This will open the Glances interface, where you can monitor various system metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, and more.

Step 5: Exploring Additional Options

Glances offers several additional options and features. You can explore these by using the help command:

glances -h

This command will display a list of all the available options and how to use them.

Step 6: Installing via Python Pip (Optional)

Alternatively, you can install Glances using pip, the Python package installer. First, install pip with the following command:

sudo apt install python3-pip

Next, install Glances using pip:

sudo pip3 install glances

This method can be used if you want to install a newer version of Glances that may not be available in the Ubuntu repositories.

Requirements

• python 2.7,>=3.4
• psutil>=5.3.0 (better with latest version)

Optional dependencies:

• bernhard (for the Riemann export module)
• bottle (for Web server mode)
• cassandra-driver (for the Cassandra export module)
• couchdb (for the CouchDB export module)
• docker (for the Docker monitoring support) [Linux-only]
• elasticsearch (for the Elastic Search export module)
• hddtemp (for HDD temperature monitoring support) [Linux-only]
• influxdb (for the InfluxDB export module)
• kafka-python (for the Kafka export module)
• netifaces (for the IP plugin)
• nvidia-ml-py3 (for the GPU plugin)
• pika (for the RabbitMQ/ActiveMQ export module)
• potsdb (for the OpenTSDB export module)
• prometheus_client (for the Prometheus export module)
• py-cpuinfo (for the Quicklook CPU info module)
• pygal (for the graph export module)
• pymdstat (for RAID support) [Linux-only]
• pySMART.smartx (for HDD Smart support) [Linux-only]
• pysnmp (for SNMP support)
• pystache (for the action script feature)
• pyzmq (for the ZeroMQ export module)
• requests (for the Ports, Cloud plugins and RESTful export module)
• scandir (for the Folders plugin) [Only for Python < 3.5]
• statsd (for the StatsD export module)
• wifi (for the wifi plugin) [Linux-only]
• zeroconf (for the auto-discover mode)

Glances interactive command list

Sort process list automatically

• If CPU >70%, sort processes by CPU usage
• If MEM >70%, sort processes by MEM usage
• If CPU iowait >60%, sort processes by I/O read and write

A – Enable/disable Application Monitoring Process

b – Switch between bit/s or Byte/s for network I/OB

B – View disk I/O counters per second

c – Sort processes by CPU usage

d -Show/hide disk I/O stats

D - Enable/disable Docker stats

e – Enable/disable top extended stats

E -Erase the current process filter

f -Show/hide file system and folder monitoring stats

F – Switch between the file system used and free space

g – Generate graphs for current history

h – Show/hide the help screen

i – Sort processes by I/O rate

I – Show/hide the IP module

l – Show/hide log messages

m – Sort processes by MEM usage

M – Reset processes summary min/max

n – Show/hide network stats

N – Show/hide the current time

p – Sort processes by name

q|ESC|CTRL-C – Quit the current Glances session

Q – Show/hide the IRQ module

r – Reset history

R – Show/hide the RAID plugin

s – Show/hide sensors stats

t – Sort process by CPU times (TIME+)

T – View network I/O as a combination

u – Sort processes by USER

U – View cumulative network I/O

w – Delete finished warning log messages

W – Show/hide Wifi module

x – Delete finished warning and critical log messages

z– Show/hide processes stats0

Enable/disable Irix/Solaris mode

The task’s CPU usage will be divided by the total number of CPUs

1Switch between global CPU and per-CPU stats2Enable/disable left sidebar3Enable/disable the quick look module4Enable/disable all but quick look and load module5Enable/disable top menu (QuickLook, CPU, MEM, SWAP and LOAD)6Enable/disable mean GPU mode/Switch between process command line or command name