ttyplot

a realtime plotting utility for terminal with data input from stdin / pipe

takes data from standard input / unix pipeline, most commonly some tool like ping, snmpget, netstat, ip link, ifconfig, sar, vmstat, etc. and plots in text mode on a terminal in real time, for example a simple ping:

supports rate calculation for counters and up to two graphs on a single display using reverse video for second line, for example snmpget, ip link, rrdtool, etc:

get

ubuntu

snap install ttyplot

debian

curl -LO https://github.com/tenox7/ttyplot/releases/download/1.4/ttyplot_1.4-1.deb && sudo apt install ./ttyplot_1.4-1.deb

macOS

brew install ttyplot

for other platforms see releases tab

examples

cpu usage from vmstat using awk to pick the right column

vmstat -n 1 | gawk '{ print 100-int($(NF-2)); fflush(); }' | ttyplot

cpu usage from sar with title and fixed scale to 100%

sar 1 | gawk '{ print 100-int($NF); fflush(); }' | ttyplot -s 100 -t "cpu usage" -u "%"

memory usage from sar, using perl to pick the right column

sar -r 1 | perl -lane 'BEGIN{$|=1} print "@F[5]"' | ttyplot -s 100 -t "memory used %" -u "%"

memory usage on macOS

vm_stat 1 | awk '{ print int($2)*4096/1024^3; fflush(); }' | ttyplot -t "MacOS Memory Usage" -u GB

number of processes in running and io blocked state

vmstat -n 1 | perl -lane 'BEGIN{$|=1} print "@F[0,1]"' | ttyplot -2 -t "procs in R and D state"

load average via uptime and awk

{ while true; do uptime | gawk '{ gsub(/,/, ""); print $(NF-2) }'; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -t "load average" -s load

ping plot with sed

on macOS change -u to -l

ping 8.8.8.8 | sed -u 's/^.*time=//g; s/ ms//g' | ttyplot -t "ping to 8.8.8.8" -u ms

wifi signal level in -dBM (higher is worse) using iwconfig

{ while true; do iwconfig 2>/dev/null | grep "Signal level" | sed -u 's/^.*Signal level=-//g; s/dBm//g'; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -t "wifi signal" -u "-dBm" -s 90

cpu temperature from proc

{ while true; do awk '{ printf("%.1f\n", $1/1000) }' /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -t "cpu temp" -u C

fan speed from lm-sensors using grep, tr and cut

{ while true; do sensors | grep fan1: | tr -s " " | cut -d" " -f2; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -t "fan speed" -u RPM

memory usage from rrdtool and collectd using awk

{ while true; do rrdtool lastupdate /var/lib/collectd/rrd/$(hostname)/memory/memory-used.rrd | awk 'END { print ($NF)/1024/1024 }'; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -m $(awk '/MemTotal/ { print ($2)/1024 }' /proc/meminfo) -t "Memoru Used" -u MB

bitcoin price chart using curl and jq

{ while true; do curl -sL https://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice.json  | jq .bpi.USD.rate_float; sleep 600; done } | ttyplot -t "bitcoin price" -u usd

stock quote chart

{ while true; do curl -sL https://api.iextrading.com/1.0/stock/googl/price; echo; sleep 600; done } | ttyplot -t "google stock price" -u usd

prometheus load average via node_exporter

{ while true; do curl -s  http://10.4.7.180:9100/metrics | grep "^node_load1 " | cut -d" " -f2; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot

network/disk throughput examples

ttyplot supports two line plot for in/out or read/write

snmp network throughput for an interface using snmpdelta

snmpdelta -v 2c -c public -Cp 10 10.23.73.254 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.{10,16}.9 | gawk '{ print $NF/1000/1000/10; fflush(); }' | ttyplot -2 -t "interface 9 throughput" -u Mb/s

local network throughput for all interfaces combined from sar

sar  -n DEV 1 | gawk '{ if($6 ~ /rxkB/) { print iin/1000; print out/1000; iin=0; out=0; fflush(); } iin=iin+$6; out=out+$7; }' | ttyplot -2 -u "MB/s"

disk throughput from iostat

iostat -xmy 1 nvme0n1 | stdbuf -o0 tr -s " " | stdbuf -o0 cut -d " " -f 4,5 | ttyplot -2 -t "nvme0n1 throughput" -u MB/s

rate calculator for counters

ttyplot also supports counter style metrics, calculating rate by measured time difference between samples

snmp network throughput for an interface using snmpget

{ while true; do snmpget -v 2c -c public 10.23.73.254 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.{10,16}.9 | awk '{ print $NF/1000/1000; }'; sleep 10; done } | ttyplot -2 -r -u "MB/s"

local interface throughput using ip link and jq

{ while true; do ip -s -j link show enp0s31f6 | jq .[].stats64.rx.bytes/1024/1024,.[].stats64.tx.bytes/1024/1024; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -r -2 -u "MB/s"

prometheus node exporter disk throughput for /dev/sda

{ while true; do curl -s http://10.11.0.173:9100/metrics | awk '/^node_disk_.+_bytes_total{device="sda"}/ { printf("%f\n", $2/1024/1024); }'; sleep 1; done } | ttyplot -r -2 -u MB/s -t "10.11.0.173 sda writes"

network throughput from collectd with rrdtool and awk

{ while true; do rrdtool lastupdate /var/lib/collectd/rrd/$(hostname)/interface-enp1s0/if_octets.rrd | awk 'END { print ($2)/1000/1000, ($3)/1000/1000 }'; sleep 10; done } | ttyplot -2 -r -t "enp1s0 throughput" -u MB/s

flags

  ttyplot [-2] [-r] [-c plotchar] [-s scale] [-m max] [-t title] [-u unit]

  -2 read two values and draw two plots, the second one is in reverse video
  -r rate of a counter (divide value by measured sample interval)
  -c character to use for plot line, eg @ # % . etc
  -e character to use for plot error line when value exceeds hardmax (default: e)
  -s initial scale of the plot (can go above if data input has larger value)
  -m maximum value, if exceeded draws error line (see -e), plot scale is fixed
  -t title of the plot
  -u unit displayed beside vertical bar

issues

stdio buffering

by default in unix stdio is buffered, you can work around it in various ways also this

ttyplot quits when tere is no more data

it's by design, you can work around by adding sleep, read or cat:

{ echo 1 2 3; cat; } | ttyplot

ttyplot erases screen when exiting

it's because of alternate screen in xterm-ish terminals, if you use one of these this will likely work around it:

echo 1 2 3 | TERM=vt100 ttyplot

you can also permanently fix terminfo entry (this will make a copy in $HOME/.terminfo/):

infocmp -I $TERM | sed -e 's/smcup=[^,]*,//g' -e 's/rmcup=[^,]*,//g' | tic -

when running interactively and non-numeric data is entered (eg some key) ttyplot hangs

press ctrl^j to re-set

legal stuff

License: Apache 2.0
Copyright (c) 2013-2018 Antoni Sawicki
Copyright (c) 2019-2020 Google LLC