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Conky is a system monitoring support tool.It is an application which can help you with monitoring servers from a unix based system like any linux OS, or FreeBSD.

Conky was developed as a replacement for the much unmaintaned project – torsmo. torsmo is still in use for light weight requirements.

There are a large number of monitoring support applications available then why conky. Conky is a highly configurable system monitoring application which works in the X desktop environment (unlike the popular web-based ones) and at the same time a light-weight system monitoring support application.

Conky can monitor a number of system variable like CPU status, Memory usage ( both RAM and hard disk usage),Types of processes and their counts, Network statistics, File systems ,uptime and a lot more.

The below monitoring setup will help a newbie to get conky working in the simplest manner.

Installation of Conky in Ubuntu:

The simplicity of Ubuntu makes Conky installation a piece of cake for any newbie. The main steps here involve the following:

1) Install Conky in the remote system you wish to monitor (say server A) with the command:
# sudo apt-get install conky

2) Next we install the ‘xauth’ application with:
# sudo apt-get install xauth

3) Open the ssh config file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and enable X11Forwarding with:
X11Forwarding yes

4) Now from the system within which you wish to get the monitoring details execute the following:

ssh -X <remote system username>@<remote system IP>

5) Now a window will be displaying all the necessary monitoring details on the desktop.

Detailed configuration of Conky:

Conky saves its configuration details in the file:

/etc/conky/conky.conf

Sample configurations are available inside the file
/usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz

To decompress it use:
gunzip -d /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz

place the contents of the resulting file inside the default conky configuration file.

Sample Configuration file for a single processor system:
background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 200
maximum_width 200
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 12
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no

TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
File System: $alignr${fs_type}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr ath0}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid ath0}
Connection quality: $alignr ${wireless_link_qual_perc ath0}%
${downspeedgraph ath0}
DLS:${downspeed ath0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown ath0}
${upspeedgraph ath0}
ULS:${upspeed ath0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup ath0}

References:
http://conky.sourceforge.net/
http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/56931
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/136147

Conky – a light weight system monitor for Ubuntu Linux Systems