Ubuntu Manpage: i3status - Generates a status line for i3bar, dzen2 or xmobar

NAME

       i3status - Generates a status line for i3bar, dzen2 or xmobar

SYNOPSIS

       i3status [-c configfile] [-h] [-v]

OPTIONS

       -c
           Specifies an alternate configuration file path. By default, i3status looks for
           configuration files in the following order:

            1. ~/.i3status.conf

            2. ~/.config/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3status/config if set)

            3. /etc/i3status.conf

            4. /etc/xdg/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3status/config if set)

DESCRIPTION

       i3status is a small program (about 1500 SLOC) for generating a status bar for i3bar,
       dzen2, xmobar or similar programs. It is designed to be very efficient by issuing a very
       small number of system calls, as one generally wants to update such a status line every
       second. This ensures that even under high load, your status bar is updated correctly.
       Also, it saves a bit of energy by not hogging your CPU as much as spawning the
       corresponding amount of shell commands would.

CONFIGURATION

The basic idea of i3status is that you can specify which "modules" should be used (the
order directive). You can then configure each module with its own section. For every
module, you can specify the output format. See below for a complete reference.

Sample configuration.

general {
output_format = "dzen2"
colors = true
interval = 5
}

order += "ipv6"
order += "disk /"
order += "run_watch DHCP"
order += "run_watch VPNC"
order += "path_exists VPN"
order += "wireless wlan0"
order += "ethernet eth0"
order += "battery 0"
order += "cpu_temperature 0"
order += "load"
order += "tztime local"
order += "tztime berlin"

wireless wlan0 {
format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip"
format_down = "W: down"
}

ethernet eth0 {
# if you use %speed, i3status requires the cap_net_admin capability
format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
format_down = "E: down"
}

battery 0 {
format = "%status %percentage %remaining %emptytime"
format_down = "No battery"
path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
low_threshold = 10
}

run_watch DHCP {
pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
}

run_watch VPNC {
# file containing the PID of a vpnc process
pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
}

path_exists VPN {
# path exists when a VPN tunnel launched by nmcli/nm-applet is active
path = "/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0"
}

tztime local {
format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
}

tztime berlin {
format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
}

load {
format = "%5min"
}

cpu_temperature 0 {
format = "T: %degrees °C"
path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
}

disk "/" {
format = "%free"
}

General
The colors directive will disable all colors if you set it to false. You can also specify
the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad" values using the
color_good, color_degraded or color_bad directives, respectively. Those directives are
only used if color support is not disabled by the colors directive. The input format for
color values is the canonical RGB hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the
colors), prefixed by a hash character ("#").

Example configuration:

color_good = "#00FF00"

Likewise, you can use the color_separator directive to specify the color that will be used
to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in color, even when colors are
disabled by the colors directive.

The interval directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will sleep before
printing the next status line.

Using output_format you can chose which format strings i3status should use in its output.
Currently available are:

i3bar
i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the i3status
output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to i3bar as
possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way, etc.).

dzen2
Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11. It was
designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window managers like
dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any windowmanger

xmobar
xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work with the
xmonad Window Manager.

term
Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to the
graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit easier because
the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but should only used for
such quick glances, because it will only support very basic output-features (for
example you only get 3 bits of color depth).

none
Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol. This should be used
with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.

It’s also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives to define
specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined in a module section its
value will override the value defined in the general section just for this module.

IPv6
This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the best
available public IPv6 address on your computer).

Example format_up: %ip

Example format_down no IPv6

Disk
Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.

These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.

Byte sizes are presented in a human readable format using a set of prefixes whose type can
be specified via the "prefix_type" option. Three sets of prefixes are available:

binary
IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti) represent multiples of powers of 1024. This is the
default.

decimal
SI prefixes (k, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1000.

custom
The custom prefixes (K, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1024.

Example order: disk /mnt/usbstick

Example format: %free (%avail)/ %total

Example format: %percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail

Example prefix_type: custom

Run-watch
Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside is valid
(that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if a specific application,
such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.

Example order: run_watch DHCP

Example format: %title: %status

Path-exists
Checks if the given path exists in the filesystem. You can use this to check if something
is active, like for example a VPN tunnel managed by NetworkManager.

Example order: path_exists VPN

Example format: %title: %status

Wireless
Gets the link quality and ESSID of the given wireless network interface. You can specify
different format strings for the network being connected or not connected.

Example order: wireless wlan0

Example format: W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip

Ethernet
Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet interface.
Getting the link speed requires the cap_net_admin capability. Set it using setcap
cap_net_admin=ep $(which i3status).

Example order: ethernet eth0

Example format: E: %ip (%speed)

Battery
Gets the status (charging, discharging, running), percentage, remaining time and power
consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it’s estimated to be empty. If you
want to use the last full capacity instead of the design capacity (when using the design
capacity, it may happen that your battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old.
In general, I want to see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.),
just specify last_full_capacity = true.

If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
integer_battery_capacity = true.

If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to modify the
"path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on your system. The first
occurence of %d gets replaced with the battery number, but you can just hard-code a path
as well.

It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be colored red.
The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or "percentage". So, if you
configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to "time", and your battery lasts another
9 minutes, it will be colored red.

Example order: battery 0

Example format: %status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)

Example low_threshold: 30

Example threshold_type: time

Example path: /sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent

CPU-Temperature
Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to define a max_threshold
that will color the temperature red in case the specified thermal zone is getting too hot.
Defaults to 75 degrees C.

Example order: cpu_temperature 0

Example format: T: %degrees °C

Example max_threshold: 42

Example path: /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input

CPU Usage
Gets the percentual CPU usage from /proc/stat (Linux) or sysctl(3) (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).

Example order: cpu_usage

Example format: %usage

Load
Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last 1, 5 and 15
minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will color the load value red in
case the load average of the last minute is getting higher than the configured threshold.
Defaults to 5.

Example order: load

Example format: %1min %5min %15min

Example max_threshold: "0,1"

Time
Outputs the current time in the local timezone. To use a different timezone, you can set
the TZ environment variable, or use the tztime module. See strftime(3) for details on the
format string.

Example order: time

Example format: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S

TzTime
Outputs the current time in the given timezone. If no timezone is given, local time will
be used. See strftime(3) for details on the format string. The system’s timezone database
is usually installed in /usr/share/zoneinfo. Files below that path make for valid timezone
strings, e.g. for /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin you can set timezone to Europe/Berlin
in the tztime module.

Example order: tztime berlin

Example format: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z

Example timezone: Europe/Berlin

DDate
Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See ddate(1) for details on
the format string. Note: Neither %. nor %X are implemented yet.

Example order: ddate

Example format: %{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H

Volume
Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. Works only on Linux
because it uses ALSA. A simplified configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to
the lack of ALSA, the device and mixer options can be ignored on these systems. On these
systems the OSS API is used instead to query /dev/mixer directly if mixer_dix is -1,
otherwise /dev/mixer+mixer_idx+.

Example order: volume master

Example format: ♪: %volume Example format_muted: ♪: 0%%

Example configuration:

volume master {
format = "♪: %volume"
format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
device = "default"
mixer = "Master"
mixer_idx = 0
}

USING I3STATUS WITH DZEN2

       After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
       output_format is set to dzen2.

       Example for usage of i3status with dzen2:

           i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
           -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"

USING I3STATUS WITH XMOBAR

       To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration file to
       ~/.xmobarrc. Also, ensure that the output_format option for i3status is set to xmobar.

       Example for usage of i3status with xmobar:

           i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"

WHAT ABOUT MEMORY USAGE OR CPU FREQUENCY?

While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a general
explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.

Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a way which is
accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging and virtual memory work in
your operating system is required. Furthermore, even if we had a well-defined way of
displaying memory usage and you would understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to
repeatedly monitor your memory usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of
memory in the last few years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old
notebook, I have 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the
right thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to do
it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough RAM and you want
to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating system will kill the process
using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.

For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how frequency
scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency governor ("ondemand")
changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status could display it. The display
number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t tell you anything useful either.

In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at occasionally anyways,
like the current date/time, whether you are connected to a WiFi network or not, and if you
have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB download.

However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a while (like
checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better off with a script doing
that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches a certain threshold. After all,
the point of computers is not to burden you with additional boring tasks like repeatedly
checking a number.

EXTERNAL SCRIPTS/PROGRAMS WITH I3STATUS

       In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore, there is no
       module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should use your shell, for
       example like this:

       Example for prepending the i3status output:

           #!/bin/sh
           # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff

           i3status | while :
           do
                   read line
                   echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
           done

       Put that in some script, say .bin/my_i3status.sh and execute that instead of i3status.

       Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you need to
       use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the contrib/ folder, see
       http://code.i3wm.org/i3status/tree/contrib

SIGNALS

       When receiving SIGUSR1, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus you will force
       an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update after changing the system
       volume, for example.

AUTHORS

       Michael Stapelberg and contributors

       Thorsten Toepper

       Baptiste Daroussin

       Axel Wagner

       Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos