Linux is an operating system that offers us a large number of tools and programs to analyze our equipment and obtain more information. We can also use software to have more control and avoid problems. In this article we are going to talk about Glances Monitor . It is a program that allows you to monitor the system and have total control over the main aspects. This way we can detect possible problems and have better knowledge. We will explain how to use it.
Glances Monitor, the tool to monitor Linux servers
Through the Linux console we can see a large amount of information that Glances shows us. We can use it in distributions like Ubuntu, for example. You can monitor CPU usage, see the name of the distribution we are using, network usage statistics, hard disk, processes, memory usage … In short, have total control of this type of information and also in a single place.
It also has a client-server mode to be able to use it through the SSH protocol. We can establish different limits so that you can warn us in case of exceeding them. This way we avoid possible problems. The information can also be displayed in color, to facilitate interruptions and certain limitations that may exist.
Glances is developed in Python and uses the libstatgrab library. In addition, it should be noted that we will not only be able to use it in the user version of Linux, but also the server version. We are going to explain how to install it and start using it on our system.
How to install and use Glances Monitor
We can install Glances Monitor in a simple and fast way on our Linux system. It is available for most major distributions. We simply have to execute the following command, in our case in Ubuntu:
Sudo apt-get install glances
It will ask us for the administrator password to continue with the installation and it will start downloading the necessary files. A configuration message will appear and once finished we will have this tool available.
When we have correctly installed the Glances Monitor tool we can run it in the terminal. To do this we simply run glances . Information like the one we see in the image below will automatically appear.
We will see data related to the use of the CPU, the network, the disks … Everything is available in a very visual way. We will quickly see all this data.
If we press the H key, it will show us a series of quick buttons that we can use. A kind of help to make the use of this program easier for those who use it for the first time.
For example we will see that if we press the C key they will show us the processes ordered according to the percentage of CPU usage. We can also hide or show certain indicators that may or may not interest us. In case you have many active processes, a good idea would be to sort them by name. In this way we will be able to find the one that interests us quickly.
We can use Glances in server mode. For this, we would have to execute the glances –s command. We will have to define an access password and later it will listen to all the network interfaces and we will only have to put the IP address and the listening port.
If we want to connect to the Glances server we would only have to put the IP address and the port . By default that port will be 61209, so if we don’t put any, it will take that one.
In short, Glances Monitor is an interesting tool for the Linux operating system for all those users who want to monitor the use of the system. It is very simple to use and also, as we have seen, it offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of information.
There are many tools of this type that we can use on our computers. Having for example a control of network connections can be very interesting at certain times. One more way to preserve safety and avoid possible problems that could put the proper functioning of the equipment at risk. Glances is, therefore, an option to take into account in the different Linux distributions that we use in our day to day.