TTYPLOT(1) General Commands Manual TTYPLOT(1)

ttyplot — realtime terminal plotting utility

ttyplot [options]

ttyplot -v

ttyplot -h

ttyplot takes data from standard input, most commonly some tool like ping(1), snmpget(1), netstat(8), ifconfig(8), sar(1), vmstat(8), etc., and plots in text mode on a terminal in real time.

Supports rate calculation for counters and up to two graphs on a single display using reverse video for second line.

The following options are supported:

Read two values and draw two plots, the second in reverse video.
Calculate counter rate and divide by measured sample interval.
plotchar
Use plotchar for the plot line, e.g. ‘@ # % .’ etc.
errcharmax
Use errcharmax for plot error line when value exceeds hardmax. Default: ‘e’.
errcharmin
Use errcharmin for plot error symbol, displayed when plot value is less than hardmin. Default: ‘v’.
softmax
Use softmax as the initial maximum value but allow it to grow with input.
hardmax
Use hardmax as a hard value limit after which an error line will be drawn (see -e). Should be greater than hardmin, if set.
hardmin
Use hardmin as a definite minimum limit of the plot range. If a plot value is less than this, error symbol will be drawn (see -E).
title
Use title as the plot title.
unit
Label the vertical axis unit.
Print the current version and exit.
Print this help message and exit.

When reading data from a pipe, ttyplot accepts the following commands typed at the terminal:

Quit.
Toggle "rate mode" on and off.

CPU usage from vmstat(8) using awk(1) to pick the right column:

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

CPU usage from sar(1) 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(1), using perl(1), to pick the right column:

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

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(1) and awk(1):

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

Ping plot with sed(1):

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(8):

{ 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("%.1f0, $1/1000) }' \
         /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
    sleep 1
  done } | ttyplot -t "cpu temp" -u C

Fan speed from sensors(1) using grep(1), tr(1) and cut(1):

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

Bitcoin price chart using curl(1) and jq(1):

{ 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

ttyplot supports two-line plots for in/out or read/write.

Local network throughput for all interfaces combined from sar(1):

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"

SNMP network throughput for an interface using ‘ttg’:

ttg -i 10 -u Mb 10.23.73.254 public 9 \
 | gawk '{ print $5,$8; fflush(); }' \
 | ttyplot -2 -u Mb/s

SNMP network throughput for an interface using snmpdelta(1):

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

Disk throughput from iostat(1):

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

ttyplot also supports counter style metrics, calculating a rate by measuring time difference between samples.

SNMP network throughput for an interface using snmpget(1):

{ 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(8) and jq(1):

{ 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("%f0, $2/1024/1024);
       }'
    sleep 1
  done } | ttyplot -r -2 -u MB/s -t "10.11.0.173 sda writes"

ttyplot is written by:
Antoni Sawicki <tenox@google.com>,
Edgar Bonet <linux@edgar-bonet.org> and
Sebastian Pipping <sebastian@pipping.org>.

Its readme was converted into this manual page by
Sijmen J. Mulder <ik@sjmulder.nl>.

By default in standard in- and output are is buffered. This can be worked around in various ways.

ttyplot quits and erases the screen when there is no more data. This is by design and can be worked around by adding sleep(1) or read(1), for example:

{ echo 1 2 3; sleep 1000; } | ttyplot

When running interactively and non-numeric data is entered (e.g. some key) ttyplot hangs. Press ‘Ctrl^J’ to reset.

December 25, 2023 Debian