gr_monitor - 3D Process or Data Monitor V0.53

gr_monitor [-t proc|free|rup|CMD] [-host h] [-sleep n] [-noskip] [-stdin] [-perrow n] [-gap x] [-witdh n] [-height n] [-geometry] [-angle n] [-dolly n] [-zoom x] [-zhorz x] [-zvert x] [-color] [-nolight] [-fog] [-onebuf] [-rotate] [-verbose] [-v]

Gr_Monitor displays a series of datasets as animated 3D bar charts.

By default gr_monitor displays information about processes resident on a UNIX system. For each process it displays a 3D bar graph of CPU consumed, memory consumed, resident set size, and elapsed time. The processes are grouped by username. Each username grouping sits on its own little plinth.

There are controls for translating, rotating, scaling, lighting and fog effects.

Gr_monitor receives info via an input stream and displays it in a X11 Mesa or X11 OpenGL window. The input is expected to be an XML document with a DTD that defines the data to be plotted.

Gr_gather(1) is an implementation of a data gatherer. It obtains data from the Linux process file system and reformats it as a suitable XML document. You can run it stand alone and redirect its output to a file if you wish to record data for later playback.

Gr_free(1) and Gr_rup(1) are implementations of data gatherers for disk/memory statistics and local-host load averages.

The gr_monitor XML input requirements are easily understood and could be used to display new kinds of data without any modification.

OPTIONS

The following controls are available in the gr_monitor window. The middle mouse button will bring a keyboard quick reference. The right mouse button will bring up another small menu duplicating some of the keyboard functions. When pressing keys beware of excessive type-a-head (count your key presses).

Here is a summary of the keys and what they do:

ESC

Exits gr_monitor.

?

Dump a key summary on stdout.

p/P

Increase or decrease the items per row guideline by one (default 12). Handy if you don't like the layout.

a/A

Zoom in or out.

x/X y/Y z/Z

Rotation about the specified axis. Lowercase +ve rotation. Uppercase -ve rotation.

i/I j/J k/K

Translation along the specified axis (i,j,k implies x,y,z).

r

Toggles rotation.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Selects a bar type. Can only select from the first 10 bar types.

s/S

Scale selected bar type up or down. Lowercase = up. Uppercase = down.

n or N

Scale selected bar type by 1.0 (i.e. reset scale).

o or O

Turn off selected bar type.

l or L

Toggle lighting.

f or F

Toggle fog effects.

h or H

Halt the display.

SPACE

Step one frame through a halted display.

GR_GATHER_COMMAND can contain an alternative command to run instead of the default which is gr_gather.

The input data format is a XML document. The DTD for the XML document should contain a hierarchy of elements that conforms to the following guidelines.

The DTD should contain a datastream element that contains a list of dataset elements that represent snapshots to be plotted.

Each dataset should contain a list of group elements that group the data by some major key, for example userid.

Each group element should contain a list of item elements that group the data by some minor key, for example process ID.

Datasets, groups and items must have id attributes.

In a given datastream, each item element must contain a number of uniquely named data elements. For example, an item might contain data elements called cpu, rss, and memory. And each of these data elements should have a data attribute that specifies a value to be plotted. The date values should be a percentage value, i.e 1.0 to 100.00. Items may have differing numbers of data elements.

Here is a sample document produced by gr_gather. It uses an embedded DTD (between the square brackets).

<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE datastream [ <!ELEMENT datastream (dataset)*> <!ELEMENT dataset (group)*> <!ATTLIST dataset id CDATA #REQUIRED> <!ELEMENT group (item)*> <!ATTLIST group id CDATA #REQUIRED> <!ELEMENT item (cpu, rss, mem)> <!ATTLIST item id CDATA #REQUIRED> <!ELEMENT cpu EMPTY> <!ATTLIST cpu data CDATA #REQUIRED> <!ELEMENT rss EMPTY> <!ATTLIST rss data CDATA #REQUIRED> <!ELEMENT mem EMPTY> <!ATTLIST mem data CDATA #REQUIRED> ]> <datastream> <dataset id="viking1 Tue Nov 9 11:07:13 1999"> <group id="bin"> <item id="801"> <cpu data="0.0001"/> <rss data="3.2584"/> <mem data="3.2584"/> </item> </group> <group id="daemon"> <item id="840"> <cpu data="0.0000"/> <rss data="6.7496"/> <mem data="6.7496"/> </item> <item id="866"> <cpu data="0.0000"/> <rss data="4.4554"/> <mem data="4.4554"/> </item> </group> </dataset> <dataset id="viking1 Tue Nov 9 11:07:18 1999"> <group id="bin"> <item id="801"> <cpu data="0.001"/> <rss data="3.3584"/> <mem data="3.5384"/> </item> </group> </dataset> <datastream>

Further examples can be obtained by viewing the stardard output from any of the gather implementations.

top(1), ps(1), gr_free(1), gr_gather(1), gr_rup(1)

Please send any bug reports to michael@actrix.gen.nz.

Gr_Monitor is very slow on a 486 with a non-accelerated graphics card but OK on more modern systems. It is fun to watch, especially on a machine where processes or users are coming and going. It is very useful for spotting hogs and uninhibited growth.

Gr_monitor is something I hacked together to learn more about OpenGL, SGI's open standard for 2D/3D graphics. The whole thing was developed under Linux using the Mesa OpenGL look-a-like library.

Michael Hamilton (michael@actrix.gen.nz)

Brian Paul (brianp@ssec.wisc.edu) is the author of the The Mesa 3-D graphics library.

XML parsing is handled by James Clark's (jjc@jclark.com) expat library.

Linux gr_gather is based on procps top by Branko Lankester, Roger Binns, and Michael K. Johnson.

Gr_monitor is based on a cut up of the GLUT example/scube.c which rotates a cube above a checker board with shadows, lighting etc. Thanks to GLUT author Mark J. Kilgard (mjk@sgi.com), scube author David G Yu.

(c) Copyright 1999, Michael Hamilton, Gentoo South Pacific Limited.

Rights to this work are defined by the copyrights on the work on which it is based. Portions coded by myself are covered by the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENCE.

Gr_gather is covered by the same licence as procps: the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENCE.

The expat library is covered by the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 or the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

For potions of gr_monitor you have the same rights as stated in the original SGI copyright:

(c) Copyright 1993, 1994, Silicon Graphics, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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