Using the Strip Chart Recorder

The EMC stripchart program is a modified version of GNOME stripchart program "gstripchart". This document is a modified copy of the GNOME stripchart documentation. For the original source code and/or documentaton goto www.gnome.org.

EMC Modifications

• The "nml" configuration file option was added.
• The "emcmot" configuration file option was added.
• The "minimum" configuration file option was more completely implemented.
• An additional update timeout was added. This allows the data to be polled more often than display is refreshed.
• The text display is updated by a timer not just by clicking on it.
• The buttons "pause" and "go" were added. (They only pause and restart the plotting to give you more time to look at something, the EMC is not paused.)
• The "bottom" column was added.
• When the scale is readjusted, if the starting the starting minimum equaled the negative of the starting maximum the scale is modified so that it will maintain this symmetry about zero.
• Several of the defaults were changed.
• The bindtextdomain code was disabled.
• The original set of Makefile stuff using automake and autoconf was trashed to use a more EMC/RCS style makefile.
• Adds the -u --update-interval command line option.
• Linked in stripnmli.cc and stripemcmoti.cc and the RCS and EMC libraries.

Hints for EMC users.

• Click on the graph with the left mouse button to bring up the "key".
• The horizontal scale is indicated with the little black tick marks. The distance between ticks is aproximately 1 second.
• The vertical scale is different for each variable. The top is the value that variable would have to have to be plotted at the top of the scale, the bottom is the value the variable would have to have to be plotted at the bottom. Initially the top and bottom equal the maximum and minimum from the configuration file, however if the maximum or minimum are exceeded the scale will change to keep the plot in the visible part of the graph.
• The file emcstrip.conf.ferror configures emstripchart to plot the following errors and high marks for the following errors.
• The normal build will skip this utility, to build it cd emc/src/stripchart and run "make".
• To make generic.run or ?.run start it every time you start EMC, base your run script on a version of generic.run that is newer than April 1, 2000 and add the following section to your .ini:

; section for emc stripchart  parameters ----------------------------------
[EMCSTRIP]

; Name of strip chart display program e.g.  emcstripchart; if not found then none will run
EMCSTRIP =              emcstripchart

; OPTIONS for emcstripchart ussually -f something.conf; This file says which
; variables to plot, colors etc. -u  changes the update rate.
OPTIONS = -f emcstrip.conf.position

Licensing

GNOME Stripchart Documentation

The gstripchart program periodically reads data from a file, extracts a value, and displays these values in one of several formats. The default format is a graphical display similar to that of a stripchart recorder. Hence the name, "gstripchart".

On systems such as Linux, in which the system parameters are available in human-readable form in the /proc directory, the gstripchart program makes a dandy performance monitoring tool, similar to but more versatile than xload.

Instead of being limited to a few standard performance parameters, the gstripchart program can plot any time-variant parameter than can be read from a file or pipe. This ability to read data from a pipe provides a very versatile and easy to use method of setting up custom displays.

The gstripchart program determines the parameters to display by reading a configuration file. The gstripchart program will first look for a configuration file specified on the command line, then look for a file named gstripchart.conf in the current directory, then look for a file named .gstripchart.conf in the users home directory, then look for a file named /etc/gstripchart.conf. If no configuration file is found, the program is terminated. 

Options

  -f, --config-file=FILE     configuration file
  -g, --geometry=GEOMETRY    geometry
  -i, --chart-interval=SECS  chart update interval
  -I, --chart-filter=SECS    chart low-pass filter time constant
  -j, --slider-interval=SECS slider update interval
  -J, --slider-filter=SECS   slider low-pass filter time constant
  -M, --menubar              add menubar
  -S, --omit-slider          omit slider
  -t, --display-type=TYPE    type of display
                none:   no display is produced (for debugging);
                text:   a textual numeric display is produced;
                graph:  a textual graphic display is produced;
                gtk:    use the default gtk-based graphic display.
      --class=CLASS          FIXME
      --display=DISPLAY      X display to use
      --gxid_host=HOST       FIXME
      --gxid_port=PORT       FIXME
      --name=NAME            FIXME
      --no-xshm              Don't use X shared memory extension
      --xim-preedit=STYLE    FIXME
      --xim-status=STYLE     FIXME
  -u, --update-interval=SECS update interval to poll data
  -?, --help                 Give this help list
      --usage                Give a short usage message
  -V, --version              Print program version

configuration file

Specifies a file from which to read configuration information. If unspecified, the current working directory is checked for a file named "gstripchart.conf", the user's home directory is checked for a file named ".gstripchart.conf", and the /etc directory is checked for a file named "gstripchart.conf". The first such file found is used.

geometry

A standard X11 geometry specification of the form WxH+X+Y.

chart-interval

slider-interval

Specifies the time interval in seconds between updates to the chart window and slider window. If unspecified, the chart window will be updated every 5 seconds and the slider window will be updated every 0.2 seconds.

chart-filter

slider-filter

Specifies the time constant in seconds to be used in low-pass filtering the data displayed in the chart or slider windows. A time constant of 0 seconds turns low-pass filtering off, which can result in a jumpy display. A time constant in the same range as the interval parameter, described above, is usually a good choice. Much larger values cause display updates to become sluggish. If unspecified, no low pass filtering is performed in either window.

menubar

Adds an application menubar to the main window. Normally this is omitted, and the menu is popped up by right-clicking on the chart window.

omit-slider

Causes the display of the slider window to be suppressed.

Configuration

The following keywords are available. Some are optional; some are only used by certain display types; many have reasonable default values, as described below.

identifier:

Introduces a parameter definition, and assigns a name to the parameter. This line *must* be the first line of a parameter description.

active:

If a parameter is marked "active = no", it will be ignored. This provides a convenient way to disable a parameter without deleting it from a parameter file.

id_char:

Provides a single-character abbreviation for a parameter. Currently unused, this is intended for the non-existant character-graphics display mode.

color:

Determines the color to be used in displaying a parameter. The color names and their RGB values are taken from X11/rgb.txt.

filename:

The file from which a parameter value is read. When a filename beginning with a "|" is supplied, input lines will be read from a pipe.

pattern:

The pattern which identifies the line from which a parameter value is to be extracted. If no pattern is provided, the first line of the file is used.

fields:

The number of fields to be split out of the first line which matches the pattern. Splitting is done on whitespace.

equation:

An equation used to obtain the value to be ploted for this parameter.

maximum:

The largest value that can be displayed. Any value in excess of the maximum will be plotted at the top of the display. If omitted, a default value of 1.0 is used.

minimum:

The smallest value that can be displayed. Any value less than the minimum will be plotted at the bottom of the display. If omitted, a default value of 0.0 is used.

nml:

The name of the variable to read from NML to use for this plot. If an equation is specified this variable becomes keyword one or $1. Adding this keyword makes the filename and pattern keywords irrelavant. See the list of variables available.

emcmot:

The name of the variable to read from EMCMOT to use for this plot. If an equation is specified this variable becomes field one or $1. Adding this keyword makes the filename and pattern keywords irrelavant. See the list of variables available.

If a pattern was specified, lines are read until one is found that contains the pattern string anywhere in the line. This line is split into the number of whitespace seperated fields specified in the "fields" line. Each of these fields is interpreted as a floating point number.

A value is obtained by evaluating the "equation" line using these field values. The first (or only) value is denoted by $1, the next by $2, and so forth. The difference between the field values between the last and the current iteration is denoted by ~1, ~2, and so forth. The elapsed time in seconds between the last and current iteration is ~t. The requested update interval is $i (and the delta is ~i, but will always be zero). All the usual infix arithmatic operators are available.

If libgtop support has been compiled into the gstripchart program, a value can be obtained from this library. This provides a portable method of obtaining many system performance parameters. The following libgtop parameters are available:

CPU Statistics

cpu_total, cpu_user, cpu_nice, cpu_sys, cpu_idle, and cpu_freq

Memory Statistics

mem_total, mem_used, mem_free, mem_shared, mem_buffer, mem_cached, mem_user, mem_locked

Swap Statistics

swap_total, swap_used, swap_free, swap_pagein, swap_pageout

Uptime Statistics

uptime, idletime

Loadavg Statistics

loadavg_running, loadavg_tasks, loadavg_1m, loadavg_5m, loadavg_15m

Network Statistics

net_pkts_in, net_pkts_out, net_pkts_total, net_bytes_in, net_bytes_out, net_bytes_total, net_errs_in, net_errs_out, net_errs_total

Note that the network statistics don't use the libgtop library. Instead, the values are read directly from /proc/net/dev, and so are only available under Linux.

NML Variables

EMCMOT Variables