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 VPN"
54 order += "wireless wlan0"
55 order += "ethernet eth0"
57 order += "cpu_temperature 0"
59 order += "tztime local"
60 order += "tztime berlin"
63 format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip"
64 format_down = "W: down"
68 # if you use %speed, i3status requires the cap_net_admin capability
69 format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
70 format_down = "E: down"
74 format = "%status %percentage %remaining %emptytime"
75 format_down = "No battery"
76 path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
81 pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
85 pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
89 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
93 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
94 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
102 format = "T: %degrees °C"
103 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
109 -------------------------------------------------------------
113 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
114 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
115 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
116 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
117 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
118 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
121 *Example configuration*:
122 -------------------------------------------------------------
123 color_good = "#00FF00"
124 -------------------------------------------------------------
126 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
127 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
128 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive.
130 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
131 sleep before printing the next status line.
133 Using +output_format+ you can chose which format strings i3status should
134 use in its output. Currently available are:
137 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
138 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
139 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
140 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
143 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
144 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
145 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any windowmanger
147 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
148 with the xmonad Window Manager.
150 Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to
151 the graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit
152 easier because the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but
153 should only used for such quick glances, because it will only support very
154 basic output-features (for example you only get 3 bits of color depth).
156 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol. This should
157 be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
159 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
160 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
161 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
162 section just for this module.
166 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
167 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
169 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
171 *Example format_down* +no IPv6+
175 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
177 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
178 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
180 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
182 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
184 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
188 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
189 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
190 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
192 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
194 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
198 Gets the link quality and ESSID of the given wireless network interface. You
199 can specify different format strings for the network being connected or not
202 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
204 *Example format*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip+
208 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
209 interface. Getting the link speed requires the cap_net_admin capability. Set
210 it using +setcap cap_net_admin=ep $(which i3status)+.
212 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
214 *Example format*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
218 Gets the status (charging, discharging, running), percentage, remaining
219 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
220 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
221 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
222 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
223 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
224 +last_full_capacity = true+.
226 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
227 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
229 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
230 modify the "path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on
231 your system. The first occurence of %d gets replaced with the battery number,
232 but you can just hard-code a path as well.
234 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
235 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
236 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
237 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
239 *Example order*: +battery 0+
241 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
243 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
245 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
247 *Example path*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent+
251 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
252 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
253 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C.
255 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
257 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
259 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
263 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+ (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
265 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
267 *Example format*: +%usage+
271 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
272 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
273 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
274 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5.
276 *Example order*: +load+
278 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
280 *Example max_threshold*: 5
284 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
285 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
286 or use the +tztime+ module.
287 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
289 *Example order*: +time+
291 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
295 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
296 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
297 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
298 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
299 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
300 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
301 in the +tztime+ module.
303 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
305 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
307 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
311 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
312 details on the format string.
313 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
315 *Example order*: +ddate+
317 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
321 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. Works only
322 on Linux because it uses ALSA.
323 A simplified configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to
324 the lack of ALSA, the +device+ and +mixer+ options can be
325 ignored on these systems. On these systems the OSS API is used instead to
326 query +/dev/mixer+ directly if +mixer_dix+ is -1, otherwise
327 +/dev/mixer++mixer_idx+.
329 *Example order*: +volume master+
331 *Example format*: +♪: %volume+
333 *Example configuration*:
334 -------------------------------------------------------------
336 format = "♪: %volume"
341 -------------------------------------------------------------
343 == Using i3status with dzen2
345 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
346 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+.
348 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
349 --------------------------------------------------------------
350 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
351 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
352 --------------------------------------------------------------
354 == Using i3status with xmobar
356 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
357 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
360 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
361 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
362 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
363 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
365 == What about memory usage or CPU frequency?
367 While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a
368 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
370 Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a
371 way which is accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging
372 and virtual memory work in your operating system is required. Furthermore, even
373 if we had a well-defined way of displaying memory usage and you would
374 understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to repeatedly monitor your memory
375 usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of memory in the last few
376 years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old notebook, I have
377 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the right
378 thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to
379 do it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough
380 RAM and you want to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating
381 system will kill the process using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.
383 For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how
384 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
385 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
386 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
387 tell you anything useful either.
389 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
390 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
391 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
394 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
395 while (like checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better
396 off with a script doing that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches
397 a certain threshold. After all, the point of computers is not to burden you
398 with additional boring tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
400 == External scripts/programs with i3status
402 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
403 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
404 use your shell, for example like this:
406 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
407 --------------------------------------------------------------
409 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
414 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
416 --------------------------------------------------------------
418 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
420 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
421 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
422 contrib/ folder, see http://code.i3wm.org/i3status/tree/contrib
426 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
427 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
428 after changing the system volume, for example.
432 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
436 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
444 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos