Cool and Collected with collectd
Tutorials – Collectd
The collectd tool harvests your system stats and stores them for plotting into colorful graphs.
Linux has a host of command-line tools for probing what's going on under the hood. To list just a few examples, there's top, which shows what processes are using which resources, df, which shows how much disk space is free, and iftop to show how much data is flowing through the network.
If you really want to get fine-grained details, you can poke about in the /proc filesystem that the kernel automatically populates with precise details of everything that happens, but it can be a little too low-level for mere mortals to understand. Although all these tools are useful, they all have one fatal flaw: They only tell you what's happening right now. In this article, we're going to look at collectd [1], which hoovers up your system stats and stores them, ready to be interrogated and plotted into colorful graphs.
You'll probably find collectd and kcollectd (the graphical front end we'll be using) in your package manager. On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives, you can install them with:
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO has unveiled a new InfinityBook Pro with an AMD Ryzen AI 300
This new notebook offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Is This the Year of Linux?
Another major organization has decided to kick Windows and Office to the curb, in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.