# NAME

conky - A system monitor for X

# SYNOPSIS

**conky**

\[ *options* \]

# DESCRIPTION

Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on torsmo. Since its
inception, Conky has changed significantly from its predecessor, while
maintaining simplicity and configurability. Conky can display just about
anything, either on your root desktop or in its own window. Not only
does Conky have many built-in objects, it can also display just about
any piece of information by using scripts and other external programs.

Conky has more than 250 built in objects, including support for a
plethora of OS stats (uname, uptime, CPU usage, mem usage, disk usage,
\"top\" like process stats, and network monitoring, just to name a few),
built in IMAP and POP3 support, built in support for many popular music
players (MPD, XMMS2, Audacious), and much much more. Conky can display
this info either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph
widgets, with different fonts and colours.

We are always looking for help, whether its reporting bugs, writing
patches, or writing docs. Please use the facilities on GitHub to
make bug reports, feature requests, and submit patches.

Thanks for your interest in Conky.

# COMPILING

For users compiling from source on a binary distro, make sure you have
the X development libraries installed (Unless you configure your build
without X11). This should be a package along the lines of \"libx11-dev\"
or \"xorg-x11-dev\" for X11 libs, and similar \"-dev\" format for the
other libs required (depending on your build options). You should be
able to see which extra packages you need to install by reading errors
that you get from running \`cmake\'. The easiest way to view the
available build options is to run \`ccmake\' or \`cmake-gui\' from the
source tree, but be careful when disabling certain features as you may
lose desired functionality. E.g., with BUILD_MATH disabled you won\'t
get errors but logarithmic graphs will be normal graphs and gauges will
miss their line.

Conky has (for some time) been available in the repositories of most
popular distributions. Here are some installation instructions for a
few:

Gentoo users \-- Conky is in Gentoo\'s Portage\... simply use \"emerge
app-admin/conky\" for installation.

Debian, etc. users \-- Conky should be in your repositories, and can be
installed by doing \"aptitude install conky\".

Example to compile and run Conky with default components (note that some
build options may differ for your system):

**cmake** **-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:string=/usr .** 

:   

**make** 

:   

**make install** **\# Optional** 

:   

**src/conky** 

:   

Conky has been tested to be compatible with C99 C and C++0x C++, however
it has not been tested with anything other than gcc, and is not
guaranteed to work with other compilers.

TIP: Try configuring Conky with \`ccmake\' or \`cmake-gui\' instead of
just \`cmake\'.

# YOU SHOULD KNOW

Conky is generally very good on resources. That said, the more you try
to make Conky do, the more resources it is going to consume.

An easy way to force Conky to reload your *\~/.config/conky/conky.conf*:
\"killall -SIGUSR1 conky\". Saves you the trouble of having to kill and
then restart.

# OPTIONS

Command line options override configurations defined in configuration
file.

**-a \| \--alignment=** **ALIGNMENT** 

:   Text alignment on screen, {top,bottom,middle}\_{left,right,middle}
    or none. Can also be abbreviated with first chars of position, ie.
    tr for top_right. Only available with build flag BUILD_X11 enabled.

**-b \| \--double-buffer** 

:   Use double buffering (eliminates \"flicker\"). Only available with
    build flag BUILD_X11 enabled.

**-c \| \--config=** **FILE** 

:   Config file to load instead of *\~/.config/conky/conky.conf*.

**-C \| \--print-config** 

:   Print builtin default config to stdout. See also the section
    EXAMPLES for more information. Only available with build flag
    BUILD_BUILTIN_CONFIG enabled.

**-d \| \--daemonize** 

:   Daemonize Conky, aka fork to background.

**-D \| \--debug** 

:   Increase debugging output, ie. -DD for more debugging.

**-f \| \--font=** **FONT** 

:   Font to use. Only available with build flag BUILD_X11 enabled.

**-h \| \--help** 

:   Prints command line help and exits.

**-i** **COUNT** 

:   Number of times to update Conky (and quit).

**-o \| \--own-window** 

:   Create own window to draw. Only available with build flag BUILD_X11
    enabled.

**-p \| \--pause=** **SECONDS** 

:   Time to pause/wait before actually starting Conky.

**-q \| \--quiet** 

:   Run Conky in \'quiet mode\' (ie. no output).

**-t \| \--text=** **TEXT** 

:   Text to render, remember single quotes, like -t \' \$uptime \'.

**-u \| \--interval=** **SECONDS** 

:   Update interval.

**-v \| -V \| \--version** 

:   Prints version, build information and general info. Exits after
    printing.

**-w \| \--window-id=** **WIN_ID** 

:   Window id to draw. Only available with build flag BUILD_X11 enabled.

**-x** **X_COORDINATE** 

:   X position.

**-X \| \--display=** **DISPLAY** 

:   X11 display to use. Only available with build flag BUILD_X11
    enabled.

**-y** **Y_COORDINATE** 

:   Y position.

# CONFIGURATION SETTINGS

Default configuration file location is *\~/.config/conky/conky.conf* or
*\${sysconfdir}/conky/conky.conf*. On most systems, sysconfdir is /etc,
and you can find the sample config file there in
*/etc/conky/conky.conf*.

You might want to copy it to *\~/.config/conky/conky.conf* and then
start modifying it. Other configs can be found at
*https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky*.

{% for item in config_settings %}
**{{ item.name }}** {{ item.args | map("reverse_format", "**{}**") | join(" ") }}

:   {{ item.desc | indent(width=4) }}
{%- if item.default %}

    Default: {{ item.default }}
{%- endif %}
{% endfor %}

# OBJECTS/VARIABLES

Colours are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
*/usr/share/X11/rgb.txt*. Colour can be also in #rrggbb format (hex).

Some objects may create threads, and sometimes these threads will not be
destroyed until Conky terminates. There is no way to destroy or clean up
threads while Conky is running. For example, if you use an MPD variable,
the MPD thread will keep running until Conky dies. Some threaded objects
will use one of the parameters as a \'key\', so that you only have 1
relevant thread running (for example, the \$curl, \$rss and \$weather
objects launch one thread per URI).

{% for item in variables %}
**{{ item.name }}** {{ item.args | map("reverse_format", "**{}**") | join(" ") }}

:   {{ item.desc | indent(width=4) }}
{%- if item.default %}

    Default: {{ item.default }}
{%- endif %}
{% endfor %}

# LUA API

Conky features a Lua Programming API, and also ships with Lua bindings
for some useful libraries. Note that the bindings require tolua++, which
currently only compiles against Lua 5.1.

To use Lua Conky, you first need to make sure you have a version of
Conky with Lua support enabled (\`\`conky -v\'\' will report this).
Conky defines certain global functions and variables which can be
accessed from Lua code running in Conky. Scripts must first be loaded
using the lua_load configuration option. You then call functions in Lua
via Conky\'s \$lua, \$lua_read, and Lua hooks.

Be careful when creating threaded objects through the Lua API. You could
wind up with a whole bunch of threads running if a thread is created
with each iteration.

At this time, the Lua API should not be considered stable and may change
drastically from one release to another as it matures.

NOTE: In order to accommodate certain features in the cairo library\'s
API, Conky will export a few additional functions for the creation of
certain structures. These are documented below.

{% for item in lua %}
**{{ item.name }}** {{ item.args | map("reverse_format", "**{}**") | join(" ") }}

:   {{ item.desc | indent(width=4) }}
{%- if item.default %}

    Default: {{ item.default }}
{%- endif %}
{% endfor %}

# EXAMPLES

**conky -t \'\${time %D %H:%M}\' -o -u 30** 

:   Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30 sec
    update interval.

**conky -a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d** 

:   Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).

**conky -C \> \~/.config/conky/conky.conf** 

:   Do not start Conky, but have it output the builtin default config
    file to *\~/.config/conky/conky.conf* for later customising.

# FILES

*\${sysconfdir}/conky/conky.conf* 

:   Default system-wide configuration file. The value of \${sysconfdir}
    depends on the compile-time options (most likely /etc).

*\~/.config/conky/conky.conf* 

:   Default personal configuration file.

# BUGS

Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn\'t work with
all window managers. Especially doesn\'t work well with Gnome and it has
been reported that it doesn\'t work with KDE either. Nautilus can be
disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck
show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in Conky
to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree useful to
find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument which makes
Conky to create its own window. If you do try running Conky in its own
window, be sure to read up on the own_window_type settings and
experiment.

# SEE ALSO

*https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky*

# COPYING

Copyright (c) 2005-2022 Brenden Matthews, Philip Kovacs, et. al. Any
original torsmo code is licensed under the BSD license (see LICENSE.BSD
for a copy). All code written since the fork of torsmo is licensed under
the GPL (see LICENSE.GPL for a copy), except where noted differently
(such as in portmon and audacious code which are LGPL, and prss which is
an MIT-style license).

# AUTHORS

The Conky dev team (see AUTHORS for a full list of contributors).