Glances: cross-platform system monitoring tool written in Python | Hacker News Reader

Glances: cross-platform system monitoring tool written in Python

nicolargo.github.io

150 pointsamzans18 comments

This is standard kit on most machines I administrate - it has a really great variety of summaries in addition to standard `top` output - but it''s all colorized.

It also has a remote mode so that you can page through a group of remote systems from a single infrastructure system.

    $ curl -L https://bit.ly/glances | /bin/bash

That (curl|bash) is really shady. Not saying the software is malicious, but if you're going to install it I wouldn't do it like that.

Agreed, especially since there's a pypi package available.

Why is a pypi package better than a bash script? Or is it the URL shortener that concerns you?

Because a pypi package can be compared to a source.

A piped bash script might change per-client or per-request.

This is the correct way to answer a question. Not sure why the parent question is being downvoted rather than simply being answered. All that does is promote ignorance.

The average person doesn't compare the source, and the average person doesn't read the bash script, for them it's the same thing.

For the person who wants to read the source, I'll argue that pressing backspace 6 time to delete "| bash" is _more_ straightforward than looking up the source for a PyPi package.

There's only a subtle difference between a PyPi account and a server (script hosted on Github?) being pwned.

Though yes, I do believe they shouldn't have used an URL shortener.

And it's a bit weird to announce it as cross-platform (windows support) and not promote a cross-platform setup/install process.

And through a third party url shortener of all things?! There's no guarantee what'll come out the other side of a bit.ly link... At least leverage github directly, rather than add another level of indirection ...

Looking at the pointer: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nicolargo/glancesautoinsta...

It doesn't even appear to support os x, installs via pip anyway (as root, unconditionally if you happen to have sudo credentials cached, or allow the script to elevate privileges).

This is probably never what you want, with the possible exception of a docker image, chroot/jail or similar.

And it really makes little sense to hard-depend on bash/sh for a cross-platform python utility - if pip install is too complicated, it shouldn't be too arduous to provide a sane python script for installation, that does most of this song and dance [and default to a virtual env] on all supported platforms. It's not like it can run without python, anyway...

Especially since you can actually detect server-side when its output is being piped to bash.

https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-b...

There are OS packages for `glances` as well as `pip` packages.

No one should be installing anything from curl-to-shell pipelines - but sadly, they do.

    if [[ `whoami` = 'root' ]]; then

The software itself might be cross-platform, but its installer definitely isn't.

I feel it's feeding too much data to the screen. I prefer gotop which is a little too simple but usually good enough to check things out.

which one of them? there are several

Glances is a very sleek tool, but it comes at a cost: CPU usage.

As a ballpark measurement, running htop for 60s with a 3s refresh interval takes 0.2s of user time. Running glances (even with almost all modules plugins disabled) for the same amount of time takes 6.7s of user time.

I still use glances every now and then, but I don't leave it running like I might with htop

I used this some time ago when I was messing with databases. My favourite feature was the ease that you can connect it up to statsd. It makes things insanely convenient.

Looks great! Going to install on those servers I can't connect to our Prometheus system.

How does this compare to telegraf?

This is cool.

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