A command line program to get CPU usage statistics on Linux systems.
I created cpu-stat to have a quick and simple answer to the question "what's the CPU usage of my system right now?" and that's what you get when you run the program with no options.
The intended use is for scripts or system monitoring tools which do not want to parse /proc/stat directly to get CPU usage stats.
For people interested in understanding more about how things work under the hood, I wrote a tutorial describing a much simpler version of this program and providing more information on the different CPU states.
NOTE: cpu-stat requires Linux kernel 2.6.33 or newer.
To build cpu-stat you need CMake or any IDE that can handle CMake files.
simple build
This will build cpu-stat in debug mode:
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
build in release mode
This will build cpu-stat in release mode:
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
$ make
install release build
This will install cpu-stat in /usr/local/bin/ after a build is completed.
$ cd build
$ sudo make install
clean release build
This will remove all files generated by a build:
$ cd build
$ make clean
Print options
| flag | description | default |
|---|---|---|
| -a | --all | print active time percentage for all CPUs, starting with total | false |
| -c <cpu> | print stats only for selected CPU. | - |
| -f | --full-state | print time percentage of all states | false |
| -p <precision> | set the decimal precision of printed numbers | 2 |
| -s <state> | print time percentage for specific state [0-9] | - |
| -v | --verbose | enable verbose mode | false |
Other options
| flag | description | default |
|---|---|---|
| -d <time> | set delay time (in ms) between 2 snapshots of CPU data | 100 |
| -h | --help | print help | - |
| --version | print the version number | - |
Print percentage of active time for total CPU:
$ cpu-stat
2.50
Print percentage of active time for all CPUs in verbose mode (with labels):
$ cpu-stat -a -v
tot] 5.00%
0] 0.00%
1] 0.00%
2] 20.00%
3] 0.00%
Print percentage of idle time (state 3) for CPU 2 using 4 digits as decimal precision:
$ cpu-stat -s 3 -c 2 -p 4
100.0000
Print percentage of all states for all CPUs in verbose mode (with labels):
$ cpu-stat -a -v -f
tot] usr: 0.00% | sys: 0.00% | nic: 0.00% | idl: 100.00% | iow: 0.00% | hir: 0.00% | sir: 0.00% | ste: 0.00% | gue: 0.00% | gun: 0.00% |
0] usr: 0.00% | sys: 0.00% | nic: 0.00% | idl: 100.00% | iow: 0.00% | hir: 0.00% | sir: 0.00% | ste: 0.00% | gue: 0.00% | gun: 0.00% |
1] usr: 0.00% | sys: 0.00% | nic: 0.00% | idl: 100.00% | iow: 0.00% | hir: 0.00% | sir: 0.00% | ste: 0.00% | gue: 0.00% | gun: 0.00% |
2] usr: 0.00% | sys: 0.00% | nic: 0.00% | idl: 100.00% | iow: 0.00% | hir: 0.00% | sir: 0.00% | ste: 0.00% | gue: 0.00% | gun: 0.00% |
3] usr: 0.00% | sys: 0.00% | nic: 0.00% | idl: 90.91% | iow: 9.09% | hir: 0.00% | sir: 0.00% | ste: 0.00% | gue: 0.00% | gun: 0.00% |
If you want to contribute to cpu-stat check out this guide about how to contribute to an open source project on GitHub first.