3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
8 i3status - Generates a status line for i3bar, dzen2 or xmobar
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:
21 2. ~/.config/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3status/config if set)
23 4. /etc/xdg/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3status/config if set)
27 i3status is a small program (about 1500 SLOC) for generating a status bar for
28 i3bar, dzen2, xmobar or similar programs. It is designed to be very
29 efficient by issuing a very small number of system calls, as one generally
30 wants to update such a status line every second. This ensures that even under
31 high load, your status bar is updated correctly. Also, it saves a bit of energy
32 by not hogging your CPU as much as spawning the corresponding amount of shell
37 The basic idea of i3status is that you can specify which "modules" should
38 be used (the order directive). You can then configure each module with its
39 own section. For every module, you can specify the output format. See below
40 for a complete reference.
43 -------------------------------------------------------------
45 output_format = "dzen2"
52 order += "run_watch DHCP"
53 order += "run_watch VPNC"
54 order += "path_exists VPN"
55 order += "wireless wlan0"
56 order += "ethernet eth0"
58 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"
77 path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
82 pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
86 # file containing the PID of a vpnc process
87 pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
91 # path exists when a VPN tunnel launched by nmcli/nm-applet is active
92 path = "/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0"
96 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
100 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
101 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
109 format = "T: %degrees °C"
110 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
116 -------------------------------------------------------------
120 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
121 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
122 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
123 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
124 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
125 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
128 *Example configuration*:
129 -------------------------------------------------------------
130 color_good = "#00FF00"
131 -------------------------------------------------------------
133 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
134 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
135 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive. This option has
136 no effect when +output_format+ is set to +i3bar+ or +none+.
138 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
139 sleep before printing the next status line.
141 Using +output_format+ you can chose which format strings i3status should
142 use in its output. Currently available are:
145 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
146 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
147 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
148 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
151 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
152 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
153 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any windowmanger
155 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
156 with the xmonad Window Manager.
158 Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to
159 the graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit
160 easier because the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but
161 should only used for such quick glances, because it will only support very
162 basic output-features (for example you only get 3 bits of color depth).
164 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol by default.
165 This should be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
167 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
168 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
169 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
170 section just for this module.
172 If you don't fancy the vertical separators between modules i3status/i3bar
173 uses by default, you can employ the +separator+ directive to configure how
174 modules are separated. You can either disable the default separator altogether
175 setting it to the empty string. You might then define separation as part of a
176 module's format string. This is your only option when using the i3bar output
177 format as the separator is drawn by i3bar directly otherwise. For the other
178 output formats, the provided non-empty string will be automatically enclosed
179 with the necessary coloring bits if color support is enabled.
181 *Example configuration*:
182 -------------------------------------------------------------
184 output_format = "xmobar"
192 format = "[ load: %1min, %5min, %15min ]"
197 -------------------------------------------------------------
201 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
202 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
204 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
206 *Example format_down*: +no IPv6+
210 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
212 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
213 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
215 Byte sizes are presented in a human readable format using a set of prefixes
216 whose type can be specified via the "prefix_type" option. Three sets of
217 prefixes are available:
220 IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
223 SI prefixes (k, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1000.
225 The custom prefixes (K, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
227 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the disk text to be
228 displayed using color_bad. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type
229 "bytes_free", "bytes_avail", "percentage_free", or "percentage_avail", where
230 the former two can be prepended by a generic prefix (k, m, g, t) having
231 prefix_type. So, if you configure low_threshold to 2, threshold_type to
232 "gbytes_avail", and prefix_type to "binary", and the remaining available disk
233 space is below 2 GiB, it will be colored bad. If not specified, threshold_type
234 is assumed to be "percentage_avail" and low_threshold to be set to 0, which
235 implies no coloring at all.
237 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
239 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
241 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
243 *Example prefix_type*: +custom+
245 *Example low_threshold*: +5+
247 *Example threshold_type*: +percentage_free+
251 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
252 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
253 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
255 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
257 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
261 Checks if the given path exists in the filesystem. You can use this to check if
262 something is active, like for example a VPN tunnel managed by NetworkManager.
264 *Example order*: +path_exists VPN+
266 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
270 Gets the link quality and ESSID of the given wireless network interface. You
271 can specify different format strings for the network being connected or not
274 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
276 *Example format*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip+
280 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
281 interface. Getting the link speed requires the cap_net_admin capability. Set
282 it using +setcap cap_net_admin=ep $(which i3status)+.
284 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
286 *Example format*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
290 Gets the status (charging, discharging, running), percentage, remaining
291 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
292 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
293 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
294 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
295 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
296 +last_full_capacity = true+. You can hide seconds in the remaining time and
297 empty time estimations by setting +hide_seconds = true+.
299 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
300 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
302 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
303 modify the "path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on
304 your system. The first occurence of %d gets replaced with the battery number,
305 but you can just hard-code a path as well.
307 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
308 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
309 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
310 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
312 *Example order*: +battery 0+
314 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
316 *Example format_down*: +No battery+
318 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
320 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
322 *Example path*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent+
326 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
327 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
328 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C.
330 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
332 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
334 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
336 *Example path*: +/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input+
340 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+ (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
342 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
344 *Example format*: +%usage+
348 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
349 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
350 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
351 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5.
353 *Example order*: +load+
355 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
357 *Example max_threshold*: +"0,1"+
361 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
362 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
363 or use the +tztime+ module.
364 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
366 *Example order*: +time+
368 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
372 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
373 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
374 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
375 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
376 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
377 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
378 in the +tztime+ module.
380 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
382 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
384 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
388 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
389 details on the format string.
390 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
392 *Example order*: +ddate+
394 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
398 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. Works only
399 on Linux because it uses ALSA.
400 A simplified configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to
401 the lack of ALSA, the +device+ and +mixer+ options can be
402 ignored on these systems. On these systems the OSS API is used instead to
403 query +/dev/mixer+ directly if +mixer_dix+ is -1, otherwise
404 +/dev/mixer++mixer_idx+.
406 *Example order*: +volume master+
408 *Example format*: +♪: %volume+
409 *Example format_muted*: +♪: 0%%+
411 *Example configuration*:
412 -------------------------------------------------------------
414 format = "♪: %volume"
415 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
420 -------------------------------------------------------------
422 == Universal module options
424 When using the i3bar output format, there are a few additional options that
425 can be used with all modules to customize their appearance:
428 The alignment policy to use when the minimum width (see below) is not
429 reached. Either +center+ (default), +right+ or +left+.
431 The minimum width (in pixels) the module should occupy. If the module takes
432 less space than the specified size, the block will be padded to the left
433 and/or the right side, according to the defined alignment policy. This is
434 useful when you want to prevent the whole status line from shifting when
435 values take more or less space between each iteration.
436 The option can also be a string. In this case, the width of the given text
437 determines the minimum width of the block. This is useful when you want to
438 set a sensible minimum width regardless of which font you are using, and at
439 what particular size. Please note that a number enclosed with quotes will
440 still be treated as a number.
442 *Example configuration*:
443 -------------------------------------------------------------
449 -------------------------------------------------------------
451 == Using i3status with dzen2
453 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
454 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+.
456 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
457 --------------------------------------------------------------
458 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
459 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
460 --------------------------------------------------------------
462 == Using i3status with xmobar
464 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
465 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
468 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
469 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
470 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
471 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
473 == What about memory usage or CPU frequency?
475 While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a
476 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
478 Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a
479 way which is accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging
480 and virtual memory work in your operating system is required. Furthermore, even
481 if we had a well-defined way of displaying memory usage and you would
482 understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to repeatedly monitor your memory
483 usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of memory in the last few
484 years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old notebook, I have
485 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the right
486 thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to
487 do it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough
488 RAM and you want to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating
489 system will kill the process using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.
491 For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how
492 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
493 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
494 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
495 tell you anything useful either.
497 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
498 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
499 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
502 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
503 while (like checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better
504 off with a script doing that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches
505 a certain threshold. After all, the point of computers is not to burden you
506 with additional boring tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
508 == External scripts/programs with i3status
510 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
511 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
512 use your shell, for example like this:
514 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
515 --------------------------------------------------------------
517 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
522 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
524 --------------------------------------------------------------
526 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
528 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
529 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
530 contrib/ folder, see http://code.i3wm.org/i3status/tree/contrib
534 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
535 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
536 after changing the system volume, for example.
540 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
544 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
552 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos