Server Resource Monitoring - Glances

As I near the end of the saga of my new 3D Printable PC case, I'm starting to look at additional bits that I'd like to sort out.

The GPU fans occassionally kickup while I'm deep in Blender--on said PC case--so I wanted to find some options for seeing system temperatures. Google lead me to Glances, which is not only temps, but all system specs. Not only that, it satisfies some of my other wants: namely cross-platform, and can work in a web-based and/or server-client fashion.

So I reached out to my trusty installer, apt, and was underway. Terminal mode was cool, then I discovered it has a web-mode. So I launched it... only to get a blank screen. Turns out Debian package policy forbids pre-compiled content, so the necessary helper files in the package are missing.

Future-Me Notes

And thus, future me, here's how I decided to resolve this issue tonight. YMMV, because you change your mind... a lot... seriously, you should work on that. I digress...

I'm not deep into python shtuff, so the pip etc. approaches don't always directly appeal to me. So I tried the wget method, and it didn't seem to want to load. I looked at the snap install method, and the tool doesn't work right in terminal mode, let alone web mode.

And so, I ventured into python. The pip commands were calling for a venv, which seemed both wonky and overkill. Wonky, because what if I want to run this often? Overkill because it seems like glances should be part of my main environment, not a virtual environment. Docker gave me the heebee geebees for the same reason... although, half a blog post in, Docker is looking pretty tempting.

Alas, pipx came to the rescue, it seems to obfuscate away this virtual environment bit somewhat.

So, Dear Future Me, here's what unlocked us tonight:

$ pipx install `glances[web]`

And to run glances, via pipx:

$ pipx run glances

But, pipx also adds the bins to ~/.local/bin, so if you update your path, you can run it directly:

$ export PATH=$PATH:/home/derek/.local/bin
$ glances -w

Onwards to system monitoring!