Quickstart

This page gives a good introduction in how to get started with Glances. Glances offers 3 modes:

  • Standalone
  • Client/Server
  • Web server

Standalone Mode

Simply run:

$ glances

Client/Server Mode

If you want to remotely monitor a machine, called server, from another one, called client, just run on the server:

server$ glances -s

and on the client:

client$ glances -c @server

where @server is the IP address or hostname of the server.

Glances can centralize available Glances servers using the --browser option. The server list can be statically defined via the configuration file (section [serverlist]).

In server mode, you can set the bind address with -B ADDRESS and the listening TCP port with -p PORT.

In client mode, you can set the TCP port of the server with -p PORT.

Default binding address is 0.0.0.0 (Glances will listen on all the available network interfaces) and TCP port is 61209.

In client/server mode, limits are set by the server side.

You can set a password to access to the server --password. By default, the username is glances but you can change it with --username.

If you ask it, the SHA password will be stored in username.pwd file.

Glances is IPv6 compatible. Just use the -B :: option to bind to all IPv6 addresses.

Autodiscover

Glances can also detect and display all Glances servers available on your network via the zeroconf protocol (not available on Windows):

client$ glances --browser

Use --disable-autodiscover to disable it.

SNMP

As an experimental feature, if Glances server is not detected by the client, the latter will try to grab stats using the SNMP protocol:

client$ glances -c @snmpserver

Note

Stats grabbed by SNMP request are limited and OS dependent.

Web Server Mode

_images/screenshot-web.png

If you want to remotely monitor a machine, called server, from any device with a web browser, just run the server with the -w option:

server$ glances -w

then on the client enter the following URL in your favorite web browser:

http://@server:61208

where @server is the IP address or hostname of the server.

To change the refresh rate of the page, just add the period in seconds at the end of the URL. For example, to refresh the page every 10 seconds:

http://@server:61208/10

The Glances web interface follows responsive web design principles.

Here’s a screenshot from Chrome on Android:

_images/screenshot-web2.png