3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
8 i3status - Generates a status line for i3bar, dzen2, xmobar or lemonbar
12 i3status [-c configfile] [-h] [-v]
17 Specifies an alternate configuration file path. By default, i3status looks for
18 configuration files in the following order:
20 1. ~/.config/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3status/config if set)
21 2. /etc/xdg/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3status/config if set)
27 i3status is a small program for generating a status bar for i3bar, dzen2,
28 xmobar, lemonbar or similar programs. It is designed to be very efficient by
29 issuing a very small number of system calls, as one generally wants to update
30 such a status line every second. This ensures that even under high load, your
31 status bar is updated correctly. Also, it saves a bit of energy by not hogging
32 your CPU as much as spawning the corresponding amount of shell commands would.
36 The basic idea of i3status is that you can specify which "modules" should
37 be used (the order directive). You can then configure each module with its
38 own section. For every module, you can specify the output format. See below
39 for a complete reference.
42 -------------------------------------------------------------
44 output_format = "dzen2"
51 order += "run_watch DHCP"
52 order += "run_watch VPNC"
53 order += "path_exists VPN"
54 order += "wireless wlan0"
55 order += "ethernet eth0"
57 order += "cpu_temperature 0"
60 order += "tztime local"
61 order += "tztime berlin"
64 format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip"
65 format_down = "W: down"
69 # if you use %speed, i3status requires the cap_net_admin capability
70 format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
71 format_down = "E: down"
75 format = "%status %percentage %remaining %emptytime"
76 format_down = "No battery"
80 status_full = "☻ FULL"
81 path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
86 pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
90 # file containing the PID of a vpnc process
91 pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
95 # path exists when a VPN tunnel launched by nmcli/nm-applet is active
96 path = "/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0"
100 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
104 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
105 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
113 format = "T: %degrees °C"
114 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
119 threshold_degraded = "10%"
120 format_degraded = "MEMORY: %free"
126 -------------------------------------------------------------
130 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
131 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
132 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
133 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
134 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
135 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
138 *Example configuration*:
139 -------------------------------------------------------------
140 color_good = "#00FF00"
141 -------------------------------------------------------------
143 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
144 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
145 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive. This option has
146 no effect when +output_format+ is set to +i3bar+ or +none+.
148 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
149 sleep before printing the next status line.
151 Using +output_format+ you can choose which format strings i3status should
152 use in its output. Currently available are:
155 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
156 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
157 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
158 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
161 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
162 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
163 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any window manager
165 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
166 with the xmonad Window Manager.
168 lemonbar is a lightweight bar based entirely on XCB. It has full UTF-8 support
169 and is EWMH compliant.
171 Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to
172 the graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit
173 easier because the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but
174 should only used for such quick glances, because it will only support very
175 basic output-features (for example you only get 3 bits of color depth).
177 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol by default.
178 This should be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
180 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
181 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
182 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
183 section just for this module.
185 If you don't fancy the vertical separators between modules i3status/i3bar
186 uses by default, you can employ the +separator+ directive to configure how
187 modules are separated. You can also disable the default separator altogether by
188 setting it to the empty string. You might then define separation as part of a
189 module's format string. This is your only option when using the i3bar output
190 format as the separator is drawn by i3bar directly otherwise. For the other
191 output formats, the provided non-empty string will be automatically enclosed
192 with the necessary coloring bits if color support is enabled.
194 i3bar supports Pango markup, allowing your format strings to specify font,
195 color, size, etc. by setting the +markup+ directive to "pango". Note that the
196 ampersand ("&"), less-than ("<"), greater-than (">"), single-quote ("'"), and
197 double-quote (""") characters need to be replaced with "`&`", "`<`",
198 "`>`", "`'`", and "`"`" respectively. This is done automatically
199 for generated content (e.g. wireless ESSID, time).
201 *Example configuration*:
203 -------------------------------------------------------------
205 output_format = "xmobar"
213 format = "[ load: %1min, %5min, %15min ]"
218 -------------------------------------------------------------
222 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
223 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
225 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
227 *Example format_down*: +no IPv6+
231 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
233 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
234 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
236 Byte sizes are presented in a human readable format using a set of prefixes
237 whose type can be specified via the "prefix_type" option. Three sets of
238 prefixes are available:
241 IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
244 SI prefixes (k, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1000.
246 The custom prefixes (K, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
248 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the disk text to be
249 displayed using color_bad. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type
250 "bytes_free", "bytes_avail", "percentage_free", or "percentage_avail", where
251 the former two can be prepended by a generic prefix (k, m, g, t) having
252 prefix_type. So, if you configure low_threshold to 2, threshold_type to
253 "gbytes_avail", and prefix_type to "binary", and the remaining available disk
254 space is below 2 GiB, it will be colored bad. If not specified, threshold_type
255 is assumed to be "percentage_avail" and low_threshold to be set to 0, which
256 implies no coloring at all. You can customize the output format when below
257 low_threshold with format_below_threshold.
259 You can define a different format with the option "format_not_mounted"
260 which is used if the path does not exist or is not a mount point. Defaults to "".
262 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
264 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
266 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
268 *Example prefix_type*: +custom+
270 *Example low_threshold*: +5+
272 *Example format_below_threshold*: +Warning: %percentage_avail+
274 *Example threshold_type*: +percentage_free+
278 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
279 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
280 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
281 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
284 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
286 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
290 Checks if the given path exists in the filesystem. You can use this to check if
291 something is active, like for example a VPN tunnel managed by NetworkManager.
292 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
295 *Example order*: +path_exists VPN+
297 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
301 Gets the link quality, frequency and ESSID of the given wireless network
302 interface. You can specify different format strings for the network being
303 connected or not connected.
305 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first wireless
306 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
308 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
310 *Example format_up*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate / %frequency) %ip+
312 *Example format_down*: +W: down+
316 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
317 interface. If no IPv4 address is available and an IPv6 address is, it will be
318 displayed. Getting the link speed requires the cap_net_admin capability.
319 Set it using +setcap cap_net_admin=ep $(which i3status)+.
321 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first non-wireless
322 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
324 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
326 *Example format_up*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
328 *Example format_down*: +E: down+
332 Gets the status (charging, discharging, unknown, full), percentage, remaining
333 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
334 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
335 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
336 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
337 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
338 +last_full_capacity = true+. You can hide seconds in the remaining time and
339 empty time estimations by setting +hide_seconds = true+.
341 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
342 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
344 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
345 modify the "path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on
346 your system. The first occurrence of %d gets replaced with the battery number,
347 but you can just hard-code a path as well.
349 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
350 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
351 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
352 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
354 To show an aggregate of all batteries in the system, use "all" as the number. In
355 this case (for Linux), the /sys path must contain the "%d" sequence. Otherwise,
356 the number indicates the battery index as reported in /sys.
358 Optionally custom strings including any UTF-8 symbols can be used for different
359 battery states. This makes it possible to display individual symbols
360 for each state (charging, discharging, unknown, full)
361 Of course it will also work with special iconic fonts, such as FontAwesome.
362 If any of these special status strings are omitted, the default (CHR, BAT, UNK,
365 *Example order (for the first battery)*: +battery 0+
367 *Example order (aggregate of all batteries)*: +battery all+
369 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
371 *Example format_down*: +No battery+
373 *Example status_chr*: +⚡ CHR+
375 *Example status_bat*: +🔋 BAT+
377 *Example status_unk*: +? UNK+
379 *Example status_full*: +☻ FULL+
381 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
383 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
385 *Example path (%d replaced by title number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB%d/uevent+
387 *Example path (ignoring the number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent+
391 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
392 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
393 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C. The
394 output format when above max_threshold can be customized with
395 format_above_threshold.
397 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
399 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
401 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
403 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning T above threshold: %degrees °C+
405 *Example path*: +/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input+
409 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+
412 It is possible to define a max_threshold that will color the load
413 value red in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
414 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 95. The output
415 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
416 format_above_threshold.
418 It is possible to define a degraded_threshold that will color the load
419 value yellow in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
420 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 90. The output format
421 when above degraded threshold can be customized with
422 format_above_degraded_threshold.
424 For displaying the Nth CPU usage, you can use the %cpu<N> format string,
425 starting from %cpu0. This feature is currently not supported in FreeBSD.
427 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
429 *Example format*: +all: %usage CPU_0: %cpu0 CPU_1: %cpu1+
431 *Example max_threshold*: +75+
433 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning above threshold: %usage+
435 *Example degraded_threshold*: +25+
437 *Example format_above_degraded_threshold*: +Warning above degraded threshold: %usage+
441 Gets the memory usage from system on a Linux system from +/proc/meminfo+. Other
442 systems are currently not supported.
444 As format placeholders, +total+, +used+, +free+, +available+ and +shared+ are
445 available. These will print human readable values. It's also possible to prefix
446 the placeholders with +percentage_+ to get a value in percent.
448 It's possible to define a +threshold_degraded+ and a +threshold_critical+ to
449 color the status bar output in yellow or red, if the available memory falls
450 below the given threshold. Possible values of the threshold can be any integer,
451 suffixed with an iec symbol (+T+, +G+, +M+, +K+). Alternatively, the integer
452 can be suffixed by a percent sign, which then rets evaluated relatively to
455 If the +format_degraded+ parameter is given and either the critical or the
456 degraded threshold applies, +format_degraded+ will get used as format string.
457 It acts equivalently to +format+.
459 As Linux' meminfo doesn't expose the overall memory in use, there are multiple
460 methods to distinguish the actually used memory.
462 *Example memory_used_method*: +memavailable+ ("total memory" - "MemAvailable", matches +free+ command)
464 *Example memory_used_method*: +classical+ ("total memory" - "free" - "buffers" - "cache", matches gnome system monitor)
466 *Example order*: +memory+
468 *Example format*: +%free %available (%used) / %total+
470 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_shared shared+
472 *Example threshold_degraded*: +10%+
474 *Example threshold_critical*: +5%+
476 *Example format_degraded*: +Memory LOW: %free+
480 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
481 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
482 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
483 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5. The output
484 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
485 format_above_threshold.
487 *Example order*: +load+
489 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
491 *Example max_threshold*: +"0,1"+
493 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning: %1min %5min %15min+
497 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
498 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
499 or use the +tztime+ module.
500 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
502 *Example order*: +time+
504 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
508 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
509 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
510 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
511 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
512 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
513 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
514 in the +tztime+ module.
515 To override the locale settings of your environment, set the +locale+ option.
517 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
519 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
521 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
523 *Example locale*: +de_DE.UTF-8+
525 If you would like to use markup in this section, there is a separate
526 +format_time+ option that is automatically escaped. Its output then replaces
527 %time in the format string.
529 *Example configuration (markup)*:
530 -------------------------------------------------------------
532 format = "<span foreground='#ffffff'>time:</span> %time"
533 format_time = "%H:%M %Z"
534 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
536 -------------------------------------------------------------
540 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
541 details on the format string.
542 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
544 *Example order*: +ddate+
546 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
550 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. PulseAudio
551 and ALSA (Linux only) are supported. If PulseAudio is absent, a simplified
552 configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to the lack of ALSA, the
553 +device+ and +mixer+ options can be ignored on these systems. On these systems
554 the OSS API is used instead to query +/dev/mixer+ directly if +mixer_idx+ is
555 -1, otherwise +/dev/mixer++mixer_idx+.
557 To get PulseAudio volume information, one must use the following format in the
566 where N is the index or name of the PulseAudio sink. You can obtain the name of
567 the sink with the following command:
569 $ pacmd list-sinks | grep name:
570 name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo>
572 The name is what's inside the angle brackets, not including them. If no sink is
573 specified the default sink is used. If the device string is missing or is set
574 to "default", PulseAudio will be tried if detected and will fallback to ALSA
575 (Linux) or OSS (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
577 *Example order*: +volume master+
579 *Example format*: +♪: %volume+
581 *Example format_muted*: +♪: 0%%+
583 *Example configuration*:
584 -------------------------------------------------------------
586 format = "♪: %volume"
587 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
592 -------------------------------------------------------------
593 *Example configuration (PulseAudio)*:
594 -------------------------------------------------------------
596 format = "♪: %volume"
597 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
600 -------------------------------------------------------------
601 -------------------------------------------------------------
603 format = "♪: %volume"
604 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
605 device = "pulse:alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo"
607 -------------------------------------------------------------
609 == Universal module options
611 When using the i3bar output format, there are a few additional options that
612 can be used with all modules to customize their appearance:
615 The alignment policy to use when the minimum width (see below) is not
616 reached. Either +center+ (default), +right+ or +left+.
618 The minimum width (in pixels) the module should occupy. If the module takes
619 less space than the specified size, the block will be padded to the left
620 and/or the right side, according to the defined alignment policy. This is
621 useful when you want to prevent the whole status line from shifting when
622 values take more or less space between each iteration.
623 The option can also be a string. In this case, the width of the given text
624 determines the minimum width of the block. This is useful when you want to
625 set a sensible minimum width regardless of which font you are using, and at
626 what particular size. Please note that a number enclosed with quotes will
627 still be treated as a number.
629 A boolean value which specifies whether a separator line should be drawn
630 after this block. The default is true, meaning the separator line will be
631 drawn. Note that if you disable the separator line, there will still be a
632 gap after the block, unless you also use separator_block_width.
633 separator_block_width::
634 The amount of pixels to leave blank after the block. In the middle of this
635 gap, a separator symbol will be drawn unless separator is disabled. This is
636 why the specified width should leave enough space for the separator symbol.
638 *Example configuration*:
639 -------------------------------------------------------------
645 separator_block_width = 1
647 -------------------------------------------------------------
649 == Using i3status with dzen2
651 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
652 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+.
654 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
655 --------------------------------------------------------------
656 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
657 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
658 --------------------------------------------------------------
660 == Using i3status with xmobar
662 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
663 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
666 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
667 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
668 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
669 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
671 == What about memory usage or CPU frequency?
673 While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a
674 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
676 Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a
677 way which is accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging
678 and virtual memory work in your operating system is required. Furthermore, even
679 if we had a well-defined way of displaying memory usage and you would
680 understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to repeatedly monitor your memory
681 usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of memory in the last few
682 years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old notebook, I have
683 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the right
684 thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to
685 do it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough
686 RAM and you want to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating
687 system will kill the process using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.
689 For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how
690 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
691 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
692 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
693 tell you anything useful either.
695 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
696 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
697 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
700 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
701 while (like checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better
702 off with a script doing that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches
703 a certain threshold. After all, the point of computers is not to burden you
704 with additional boring tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
706 == External scripts/programs with i3status
708 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
709 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
710 use your shell, for example like this:
712 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
713 --------------------------------------------------------------
715 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
720 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
722 --------------------------------------------------------------
724 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
726 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
727 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
728 contrib/ folder, see https://github.com/i3/i3status/tree/master/contrib
732 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
733 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
734 after changing the system volume, for example.
738 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
742 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
750 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos