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ttyplot - realtime terminal plotting utility


TTYPLOT(1) General Commands Manual TTYPLOT(1)

NAME

ttyplot — realtime terminal plotting utility

SYNOPSIS

ttyplot [options]
ttyplot
-v
ttyplot
-h

DESCRIPTION

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:

−2

Read two values and draw two plots, the second in reverse video.

−r

Calculate counter rate and divide by measured sample interval.

−c plotchar

Use plotchar for the plot line, e.g. ‘@ # % .’ etc.

−e errcharmax

Use errcharmax for plot error line when value exceeds hardmax. Default: ‘e’.

−E errcharmin

Use errcharmin for plot error symbol, displayed when plot value is less than hardmin. Default: ‘v’.

−s softmax

Use softmax as the initial maximum value but allow it to grow with input.

−m 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.

−M 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 ).

−t title

Use title as the plot title.

−u unit

Label the vertical axis unit.

−v

Print the current version and exit.

−h

Print this help message and exit.

KEY BINDINGS

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

q

Quit.

r

Toggle "rate mode" on and off.

EXAMPLES

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/ˆ.*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/ˆ.*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 "ˆnode_load1 " \
| cut -d" " -f2; sleep 1
done } | ttyplot

Network/disk throughput examples

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

Rate calculator for counters

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 ’/ˆnode_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"

AUTHORS

ttyplot is written by:
Antoni Sawicki <[email protected]>,
Edgar Bonet <[email protected]> and
Sebastian Pipping <[email protected]>.

Its readme was converted into this manual page by
Sijmen J. Mulder <[email protected]>.

BUGS

By default in standard in- and output are is buffered. This can be worked around in various ways: http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/how-to-fix-stdio-buffering.html.

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 ‘CtrlˆJ’ to reset. GNU January 20, 2024 TTYPLOT(1)


Updated 2026-06-01 - jenkler.se | uex.se