GKrellM - GNU (or Gtk) Krell Monitors (or Meters)
          (with an understood 'I' somewhere in appreciation for Imlib)
=======================================================================

Author:	Bill Wilson
Email:  bill@gkrellm.net
Homepage: http://gkrellm.net

Copyright (c) 1999-2000 by Bill Wilson.  This program is free software
which I release under the GNU General Public License.
Read the COPYRIGHT file for more info.


Description
===========
With a single process, GKrellM manages multiple stacked monitors and supports
applying themes to match the monitors appearance to your window manager,
Gtk, or any other theme.


GKrellM Features
================
	* SMP CPU, Disk, Proc, and active net interface monitors with LEDs.
	* Internet monitor that displays current and charts historical port hits.
	* Memory and swap space usage meters and a system uptime monitor.
	* File system meters show capacity/free space and can mount/umount.
	* A mailbox monitor which can launch mail reader, remote mail fetch.
	* Clock/calendar and hostname display.
	* APM laptop battery monitor.
	* CPU/motherboard temperature/fan display if lm_sensors modules installed.

	* Multiple monitors managed by a single process to reduce system load.
	* A timer button that can execute PPP or ISDN logon/logoff scripts.
	* Charts are autoscaling with configurable grid line resolution, or
	  can be set to a fixed scale mode.
	* Separate colors for "in" and "out" data.  The in color is used for
	  CPU user time, disk read, forks, and net receive data.  The out color
	  is used for CPU sys time, disk write, load, and net transmit data.
	* Commands can be configured to run when monitor labels are clicked.
	* GKrellM is plugin capable so special interest monitors can be created.
	* A different theme can be created with the GIMP.


User Interface
==============
	* Top frame:
		Btn 1   - press and drag to move gkrellm window
		Btn 3   - popup menu for user config window
	* Side frames:
		Btn 2   - slide gkrellm window shut (Btn1 if -m2 option)
		Btn 3   - popup menu for user config window
	* All charts
		Btn 1   - toggle draw of extra info on the chart.
	* Inet charts
		Btn 2,3	- toggle between port hits per minute and hour.
	* File System meter panels:
		Btn 1	- On the label, Toggle visibility of secondary fs monitors.
	              On the mount button, run the mount/umount commands.
		Btn 2,3	- Toggle display of label and fs capacity scrolling display.
	* Mem and Swap meter panels:
		Btn 2,3	- Toggle display of label and memory or swap capacity
	              scrolling display.
	* Mailbox monitor message count button:
		Btn 1	- Launch a mail reader program.  If options permit, also
	              stop animations and reset remote message counts.
		Btn 2,3	- Toggle mail check mute mode which inhibits the sound
	              notify progra, and optionally inhibits all mail checking.
	* Mailbox monitor envelope decal:
		Btn 1	- Force a mail check regardless of mute or timeout state.
	* APM monitor panel:
		Btn 2,3	- Toggle minutes left and percentage display.

  Keyboard shortcuts:
	* F1  = popup the user config window.
	* p   = switch to previous theme or theme alternative.
	* n   = switch to next theme or theme alternative.
	* u   = switch to previous theme, skipping any theme alternatives.
	* d   = switch to next theme, skipping any theme alternatives.

	If a command has been configured to be launched for a monitor, then
	left click on the monitor label to run the command.


Requirements
============
To use or compile GKrellM, you need:
	* GTK+ 1.2
	* gdk-imlib (often distributed as part of the Imlib package).
	* libgtop for systems other than FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Linux.
To compile, you additionally need the development versions of these libs.


Installation
============
See the INSTALL file.  BSD systems will probably need to use GNU gmake
instead of BSD make.


Running GKrellM
===============

I run gkrellm at X startup by putting this in my .xsession (or .xclients or
whatever if you are not Debian).

	gkrellm &

Or if you run Gnome, you can install the GKrellM-Gnome plugin and get
session management.

GKrellM may also be run from the command line, to get a list of options:

	gkrellm --help

Some of the options are:
	-t, --theme  theme_dir
	   GKrellM will load all theme image files it finds in theme_dir
	   and parse the gkrellmrc file if one exists.  This option overrides
	   the loading of the last theme you configured to be loaded in
	   the Themes configuration window.  Theme changes are not saved
	   when GKrellM is run with this option.
	-g, --geometry +x+y
	   Or -g +x+y.  Makes GKrellM move to an x y postition on the screen
	   at startup.  Standard X window geometry position (not size) formats
	   are parsed, ie +x+y -x+y +x-y -x-y.  Except, negative geometry
	   positions are not recognized (ie +-x--y )
	-wm
	   Forces GKrellM to start up with window manager decorations.  The
	   default is no decorations because there are themed borders.
	-w, --withdrawn
	   GKrellM starts up in withdrawn mode so it can go into the Blackbox
	   slit (and maybe WindowMaker dock)
	-c, --config  suffix
	   Use alternate config files generated by appending "suffix" to config
	   file names.  This overrides any previous host config which may have
	   been setup with the below option.
	-nc
	   No config mode.  The config menu is blocked so no config changes
	   can be made.  Useful in certain environments, or maybe for running
	   on a gdm login screen or during a screensaver mode?
	-f, --force-host-config
	   If GKrellM is run once with this option and then the configuration
	   or theme is changed, the config files that are written will have
	   a -hostname appended to them.  Subsequent runs will detect the
	   user_config-hostname and gkrellm_theme.cfg-hostname files and use
	   them instead of the normal configuration files (unless the --config
	   option is specified).   This is a convenience for allowing
	   remote GKrellMs independent config files in a shared home directory,
	   and for the hostname to show up in the X title for window management.
	-demo
	   Force enabling of many monitors so themers can see everything. All
	   config saving is inhibited.
	-p, --plugin  plugin_under_test.so
	   For plugin development, load the command line specified plugin so you
	   can avoid repeated install steps in the development cycle.


Configuring GKrellM
===================

A right button mouse click on the side or top frames of the GKrellM
window will pop up a user configuration window where you can configure
all the builtin and plugin monitors.


Using GKrellM - keeping an eye on your computers Id.
====================================================

Charts
------
You will notice if you try to change the grid scaling for any
chart that GKrellM likes to constrain you to values in a 1,2,5
sequence.  This is the best possible compromise between having
a scale that doubles at every step and that is also a clean decimal
value.  You can override this sequence, but always consider the
effect on reading rate values from the charts and krells.

See General->Info in the config for basic chart reading and resolution
setting.

Net Monitors
------------
GKrellM is designed to display a chart for net interfaces which are
up, which means they are listed in the routing table (however, it is
possible in some cases to monitor unrouted interfaces).
One net interface may be linked to a timer button which can be used
to connect and disconnect from an ISP.

The timer button shows an off, standby, or on state by a distinctive
(color or shape) icon.
ppp: Standby state is while the modem phone line is locked while
    ppp is connecting, and the on state is the ppp link connected.
    The phone line lock is determined by the existence of the modem
    lock file /var/lock/LCK..modem.  If your pppd setup does not
    use /dev/modem, then you can configure an alternative with:
         ln  -s  /var/lock/LCK..ttySx   ~/.gkrellm/LCK..modem
    where ttySx is the tty device your modem uses.  The ppp on
    state is detected by the existence of /var/run/pppX.pid and
    the time stamp of this file is the base for the on line time.
ippp: glibtop is used to get the isdn on line or hangup status.
    The timer button standby state is not applicable to isdn
    interfaces that are always routed. The on state is isdn on line
    while the ippp interface is routed.  The on line timer is reset
    at isdn hangup to on line transitions.
For both ppp and ippp timer button links, the panel area of the
interface is always shown and the chart appears when the interface
is routed with the phone link connected or on line.
The timer button Start Command must run in the background and
this is automatically the default for many ppp logon scripts. A couple
of exceptions are wvdial and kppp which need to be explicitly
backgrounded:

      wvdail &
or
      kppp -c Foo &

and the timer button Stop Command in these cases could be:

      skill -c wvdial
or
      kppp -k

Otherwise do not append the "&" ppp Start Command entries that
background themselves.

If the timer button is not linked to a net interface, then it can
be used as a push on / push off timer

Net monitors can have a label so that the interface can be
associated with the identity of the other end of the connection.
This is useful if you have several net connections or run multiple
remote gkrellms.  It can be easier to keep track of who is connected
to who.


Mem and Swap Meters
-------------------
Here you are reading a ratio of total used to total available.
The amount of memory used indicated by the memory monitor is
actually a calculated "used" memory.  If you enter the
"free" command, you will see that most of your memory is almost
always used because the kernel uses large amounts for buffers
and cache.  Since the kernel can free a lot of this memory
as user process demand for memory goes up, a more realistic reading
of memory in use is obtained by subtracting the buffers and cached
memory from the kernel reported used.  This is shown in the free
command output in the "-/+ buffers/cache" line where a calculated
used amount has buffers and cached memory subtracted from the kernel
reported used memory, and a calculated free amount has the buffers
and cached memory added in.

While the memory meter always shows the calculated "used" memory,
the raw memory values total, shared, buffered, and cached may be
optionally displayed in the memory panel by entering an appropriate
format display string in the config.

Units:  All memory values have units of binary megabytes (Mib).
Memory sizes have historically been reported in these units because
memory arrays on silicon have always increased in size by multiples
of 2.  Add an address line to a memory chip and you double or quadruple
(a multiplexed address) the memory size.  A binary megabyte is
2^20 or 1048576.  Contrast this with units for other stats such
as disk capacities or net transfer rates where the proper units
are decimal megabytes or kilobytes.  Disk drive capacities do not
increase by powers of 2 and manufacturers do not use binary
units when reporting their sizes.  However, some of you may prefer
to see a binary disk drive capacity reported, so it is available
as an option - but I don't recommended it.


Internet Monitor
---------------
Displays TCP port connections and records historical port hits on a
minute or hourly chart.  Middle button click on an inet chart to
toggle between the minute and hourly displays.  There is a strip
below the minute or hour charts where marks are drawn for port
hits in second intervals.  Each inet krell also shows port hits
with a full scale range of 5 hits.  The left button toggle of extra
info displays current port connections.

For each internet monitor you can specify two labeled datasets with
one or two ports for each dataset.  There are two ports because some
internet ports are related and you might want to group them - for
example, the standard http port is 80, but there is also a www web
caching service on port 8080.  So it makes sense to have a http
monitor which combines data from both ports.  A possible common
configuration would be to create one inet monitor that monitors
http hits plotted in the in_color and ftp hits in the out_color.
To do this, setup in the Internet configuration tab:

    http  80 8080    ftp  21

Or you could create separate monitors for http and ftp.  Other
monitors might be smtp on port 25 or nntp on port 119.

If you check the "Port0 - Port1 is a range" button, then all of the
ports between the two entries will be monitored.  Clicking the
small button on the Inet panels will pop up a window listing the
currently connected port numbers and the host that is connected
to it.

GKrellM samples TCP port activity once per second, so it is possible
for port hits lasting less than a second to be missed.


File System Monitor
-------------------
File system mount points can be selected to be monitored with a meter
that shows the ratio of blocks used to total blocks available.  Mounting
commands can be enabled for mount points in one of two ways:

1) If a mount point is in your /etc/fstab and you have mount permission
then mount and umount commands can be enabled and executed for that
mount point simply by checking the "Enable /etc/fstab mounting" option.
Mount table entries in /etc/fstab must have the "user" option set
to grant this permission unless GKrellM is run as root.
For example, if you run GKrellM as a normal user and you want to be
able to mount your floppy, your /etc/fstab could have either of:
    /dev/fd0  /mnt/floppy  ext2   user,noauto,rw,exec  0  0
or
    /dev/fd0  /mnt/floppy  ext2   user,defaults  0  0

2) If GKrellM is run as root or if you have sudo permission to run the
mount commands, then a custom mount command can be entered into the
"mount command" entry box.  A umount command must also be entered if you
choose this method.  Example mount and umount entries using sudo:
      sudo /bin/mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/A
      sudo /bin/umount /mnt/A
Notes: the mount point specified in a custom mount command (/mnt/A in
this example) must be the same as entered in the "Mount Point" entry.
Also, you should have the NOPASSWD option set in /etc/sudoers for this.

File system monitors can be created as primary (always visible)
or secondary which can be hidden and then shown when they are of
interest.  For example, you might make primary file system monitors
for root, home, or user so they will be always visible, but make
secondary monitors for less frequently used mount points such as
floppy, zip, backup partitions, foreign file system types, etc.
Secondary FS monitors can also be configured to always be visible if they
are mounted by checking the "Show if mounted" option.   Using this
feature you can show the secondary group, mount a file system, and have
that FS monitor remain visible even when the secondary group is hidden.
A standard cdrom mount will show as 100% full but a monitor for it
could be created with mounting enabled just to have the
mount/umount convenience.

See what I have to say about units under the Memory and Swap Monitors.


Mailbox Monitor
---------------
Checks your mailboxes for unread mail. A mail reading program (MUA) can be
executed with a left mouse click on the mail monitor panel button, and
a mail notify (play a sound) program can be executed whenever the new
mail count increases.  The mail panel envelope decal may also be
clicked to force an immediate mail check at any time so long as the
mail checking is not muted.

GKrellM is capable of checking mail from local mailboxes (mbox, MH, and
maildir types) and from remote POP3 and IMAP mailboxes.  Read the Info tab
of the mail config to see how to enter each type of mailbox.

Before internal POP3 and IMAP checking was added, an external mail
fetch/check program could be set up to be executed periodically to
download or check remote POP3 or IMAP mail.  This method is still
available and must be used if you want GKrellM to be able to
download remote mail to local mailboxes because the builtin checking
functions cannot download.

Read the Info tab in the Mail config for more information.

Here are some examples for remote mail fetching:

----

    Mail reading program:    xfmail
	Notify (sound) program:  esdplay /usr/local/sounds/newmail.wav
	Mail fetch/check program:   [none]

	Mailboxes:
		/var/mail/bill
		mail.gkrellm.net  bill  password

In this example, the builtin POP3 mail checking will check for
remote mail for user "bill" on server "mail.gkrellm.net" and report
any new mail counts.  The xfmail mail reader can then do its own
downloading when it is launched or when the "Check new mail" button is
clicked.

----

    Mail reading program:    xterm -e mutt
	Notify (sound) program:  cat /usr/local/sounds/newmail.wav > /dev/dsp
	Mail fetch/check program:    fetchmail

With this configuration, fetchmail will download remote mail and deliver
to local mailboxes which GKrellM can be set up to watch in the Mailboxes
tab.  The mail reader need only be able to process local mailboxes.
Obviously, fetchmail must be properly configured.



APM Laptop Battery Monitor
--------------------------
This meter will be available if a battery exists and will show battery
percentage life remaining.  A decal indicates if AC line is connected
or if the battery is in use and if the data is available, a time remaining
decal shows battery time left in minutes or seconds.


CPU/Motherboard Sensors - Temperature, Voltages, and Fan RPM
-------------------------------------------------
For Linux, if you have lm_sensor kernel modules installed which reports
sensor readings in /proc/sys/dev/sensors as a chip/tempX, chip/inX,
or chip/fanX file, then GKrellM can display your CPU and motherboard
temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds.  I do not link against the
lm_sensor library because I do not want to have that extra dependency
for users that do not have or care about sensors.  FreeBSD provides
sensor reporting for some sensor chips.

If the /proc/sys/dev/sensors directory exists and has chip subdirectories
(which it will if lm_sensors has been correctly installed and finds
the sensor chip on your motherboard), then GKrellM automatically detects
this and there will be a "Sensors" configuration option in the config
window.  Likewise there will be the Sensors config if FreeBSD detects
a sensor chip.

To get this to work, you must manually link temperature and fan files
to your cpu/motherboard in the "Sensor" configuration page.  The linking
is made by entering "cpu" or "mb" in the "Sensor Label" entry next to
the "Sensor Files" name.  For example, if you want readings from sensor
file temp1 and/or sensor file fan1 to show up on the cpu panel, then enter
"cpu" as the label for both temp1 and fan1.  If you want the readings to
show up on the Proc panel, then enter "mb" as the labels (I use the Proc
panel for motherboard readings to save the overhead of an extra panel - and
it does make some sense if you think about it hard enough).  If you have
a SMP machine, then the labels must be "cpu0", "cpu1", etc and you must
be displaying real cpu charts.

There is a separate "Voltages" config page where voltages may
be enabled.  See the Info page in the config.

If you set up to monitor both a temperature and a fan on a panel,
they can be displayed optionally as a an alternating single display
or as separate displays.  If separate, the fan display will replace
the panel label.  The configuration for this is under the CPU and Proc
config pages.

In the Setup page for the Sensors config you also enter any correction
factors and offsets for each of the sensors you are monitoring.  This
is the same configuration information you would have to set up in
/etc/sensors.conf if GKrellM were linked against the lm_sensor library.
Eg. if you have a line for the in3 voltage in sensors.conf like:

compute in3 ((6.8/10)+1)*@ ,  @/((6.8/10)+1)

then you would enter 1.68 as the factor and 0 as the offset for in3.
Voltages currently cannot be made a function of other voltages, but
I will see about adding that if I can get some input from someone
with a sensor chip needing it.


CPU/Motherboard Temperatures
----------------------------
You can calibrate temperature readings by setting a correction factor
and offset for each temperature file.  

You have to decide via your motherboard manual or inspection which
temperature file corresponds to which CPU or motherboard and it may
help to read the lm_sensor documentation.  The way I would make the
link by inspection is to dump the contents of each temperature file
reported under GKrellM's Sensor configuration tab.  Each temperature
file should have a single line with three numbers which report
temperature over, temperature hysteresis, and measured temperature.
It is likely that the temperature file corresponding to the motherboard
temperature will have a temperature over and hysteresis less than
those in the temperature files for CPU's.   You could also try
modulating CPU temperatures to see which sensor reading tracks the
modulation.  For example, with your computer cover off and after
warming up to equilibrium, try augmenting cooling on a CPU by blowing
additional air on the heatsink.  Or maybe try some circuit cooler.

Some motherboards may not provide accurate temperature readings because
of various factors, such as variations in sensor contact with the CPU.
For these cases, if you care about precise temperature readings, you can
enter calibration numbers in the sensors config to correct the raw
temperature readings.

To do this calibration, take two real CPU temperature readings
corresponding to two sensor reported readings.   To get the real
readings, you can trust that your motherboard manufacturer has done
this calibration and is reporting accurate temperatures in the bios,
or you can put a temperature probe directly on your CPU case (if
possible and safe).  I would guess the motherboard temperature will
not need calibration, but you could check with a temperature probe.

Here is a sample CPU calibration procedure.  Make sure GKrellM is
configured with default factors of 1.0 and offsets of 0 and is
reporting temperatures in centigrade:

    1) Boot up the machine cold and read a real temperature T1
       from the bios or a temperature probe.  If reading from the
       bios, boot as quickly as possible and record a sensor
       temperature S1 as reported by GKrellM.
    2) Allow the CPU to run and heat up to equilibrium.
       Record sensor temperature S2 and real temperature T2.
       If reading real temps from the bios, you have to shutdown
       and reboot into the bios quickly before temperatures drift.
    3) Now you can calculate the correction factor and offset you need
       to enter into the Sensor configuration tab:
           From:
                   s - S1     t - T1
                   ------  =  ------
                  S2 - S1    T2 - T1

                                 T2 - T1     S2*T1 - S1*T2
                        t  = s * -------  +  -------------
                                 S2 - S1         S2 - S1

            So:
                          T2 - T1                S2*T1 - S1*T2
                factor =  -------      offset =  -------------
                          S2 - S1                   S2 - S1

Note: ideally, the temperature measurements should each be made at
equilibrium and in the above example, the T1 S1 reading will probably
not be an equilibrium reading.  Maybe a pair of readings with the
cpu idling as much as possible and then running something like cpuburn
could be made.  See Freshmeat for cpuburn, and read the cautions.
Anyway, these are just some ideas.  I'm not actually recommending
that anyone try sticking temperature probes inside their machines.


Command launching
-----------------
Many monitors can be set up to launch a command when you click on
the monitor label.  When a command is configured for a monitor, its
label is converted into a button which becomes visible when the mouse
enters the panel or meter area of the label.

You can use the command launching feature to run commands related to
monitoring functions, or you may use it to have a convenient launch
for any command.  Since GKrellM is usually made sticky, you can have
easy access to several frequently used commands from any desktop.
This is intended to be a convenience and way to maximize utilization
of screen real estate and not a replacement for more full featured
command launching from desktops such as Gnome or KDE or others.
Some launch examples for some monitors could be:

   Calendar: gnomecal, evolution, or ical
        CPU: xterm -e top  or  gps
       inet: gftp  or  xterm -e ftpwho
        net: mozilla, netscape,  or  xterm -e slrn -C-
and so on...

Tooltips can be set up for these commands.


Installing a Theme for GKrellM
==============================

A theme is a directory containing image files and a gkrellmrc
configuration file.  The directory should be installed as a
subdirectory under your ~/.gkrellm/themes directory or under
/usr/local/share/gkrellm/themes.  Themes for GKrellM
can be downloaded from www.muhri.net and once untarred can be
selected from the Themes configuration tab.

GKrellM also searches /usr/share/gkrellm/themes for any system wide
themes installed as part of a distribution.  Finally, a theme you
simply want to check out can be untarred anywhere and used by
running:  gkrellm -t path_to_theme

Read the Themes file if you want more information or are interested in
making a new theme for GKrellM.


Plugins
=======

GKrellM tries to load all plugins (shared object files ending in .so)
it finds in your plugin directory ~/.gkrellm/plugins.  The directories
/usr/local/lib/gkrellm/plugins and /usr/lib/gkrellm/plugins are
also searched for plugins to install.
For compatibility with pre 1.0.6 versions, plugins from the directories
/usr/local/share/gkrellm/plugins and /usr/share/gkrellm/plugins are
still installed, but this is not compatible with the FHS.

Some plugins may be available only as source files and they will
have to be compiled before installation.  There should be instructions
for doing this with each plugin that comes in source form.

If you are interested in writing a plugin, go to the Plugins page
at http://gkrellm.net and there you will find a Plugin programmers
reference and Plugins-changelog.
