The Stress Terminal UI: s-tui

Stress-Terminal UI, s-tui, monitors CPU temperature, frequency, power and utilization in a graphical way from the terminal.

Screenshot

Table of Contents

• The Stress Terminal UI: s-tui
  • Screenshot
  • What it does
  • Usage
  • Simple installation
    • pip (x86 ARM)
  • More installation methods
    • Ubuntu (18.10 and newer)
    • Ubuntu (18.04, 16.04)
    • Arch Linux, Manjaro
    • OpenSUSE
    • Fedora
  • Options
  • Dependencies
  • Configuration
    • Saving a configuration
    • Adding threshold scripts
  • Run from source code
    • OPTIONAL integration of FIRESTARTER (via submodule, does not work on all systems)
  • Compatibility
  • FAQ
  • Contributing
  • Tip

What it does

• Monitoring your CPU temperature/utilization/frequency/power
• Shows performance dips caused by thermal throttling
• Requires no X-server
• Built in options for stressing the CPU (stress/stress-ng/FIRESTARTER)

Usage

s-tui

Simple installation

pip (x86 + ARM)

The most up to date version of s-tui is available with pip.

Install with:

pip install s-tui --user

(This usuall creates an executable in ~/.local/bin/ dir. Make sure it is in your PATH)

To install as root

sudo pip install s-tui

You might need to install python-dev first

Installation in virtualenv with pipsi:

pipsi install s-tui

More installation methods

Ubuntu (18.10 and newer)

sudo apt install s-tui

Ubuntu (18.04, 16.04)

A PPA is available but is not up to date

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:amanusk/python-s-tui
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-s-tui

Arch Linux, Manjaro

s-tui is in the Arch repository:

sudo pacman -S s-tui

s-tui-git follows the master branch, maintained by @MauroMombelli

Install it with:yay -S s-tui-git

OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install s-tui

Fedora

s-tui is in the Fedora repository:

sudo dnf install s-tui

Options

TUI interface:

The side bar houses the controls for the displayed graphs.
At the bottom, all sensors reading are presented in text form.

* Use the arrow keys or 'hjkl' to navigate the side bar
* Toggle between stressed and regular operation using the radio buttons in 'Modes'.
* If you wish to alternate stress defaults, you can do it in <Stress options>
* Select graphs to display in the <Graphs> menu
* Select summaries to display in the <Summaries> menu
* Use the <Reset> button to reset graphs and statistics
* If your system supports it, you can use the UTF-8 button to get a smoother graph
* Save your current configuration with the <Save Settings> button
* Press 'q' or the <Quit> button to quit

* Run `s-tui --help` to get this message and additional cli options

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug           Output debug log to _s-tui.log
  --debug-file DEBUG_FILE
                        Use a custom debug file. Default: _s-tui.log
  -dr, --debug_run      Run for 5 seconds and quit
  -c, --csv             Save stats to csv file
  --csv-file CSV_FILE   Use a custom CSV file. Default: s-tui_log_<TIME>.csv
  -t, --terminal        Display a single line of stats without tui
  -j, --json            Display a single line of stats in JSON format
  -nm, --no-mouse       Disable Mouse for TTY systems
  -v, --version         Display version
  -tt T_THRESH, --t_thresh T_THRESH
                        High Temperature threshold. Default: 80

Dependencies

s-tui is a great for monitoring. If you would like to stress your system, install stress. Stress options will then show up in s-tui (optional)

sudo apt-get install stress

Configuration

s-tui is a self-contained application which can run out-of-the-box and doesn't need config files to drive its core features. However, additional features like running scripts when a certain threshold has been exceeded (e.g. CPU temperature) does necessitate creating a config directory. This directory will be made in ~/.config/s-tui by default.

Saving a configuration

Selecting <Save Settings> will save the current configuration to ~/.config/s-tui/s-tui.conf. If you would like to restore defaults, simply remove the file.

Adding threshold scripts

s-tui gives you the ability to run arbitrary shell scripts when a certain threshold is surpassed, like your CPU temperature. You can define this custom behaviour by adding a shell file to the directory ~/.config/s-tui/hooks.d with one of the following names, depending on what threshold you're interesting in reacting to:

• tempsource.sh: triggered when the CPU temperature threshold is exceeded

If s-tui finds a script in the hooks directory with the name of a source it supports, it will run that script every 30 seconds as long as the current value of the source remains above the threshold.

Note that at the moment only CPU temperature threshold hooks are supported.

Run from source code

Start by cloning the repository

git clone https://github.com/amanusk/s-tui.git
cd s-tui

Install required dependencies as [root] or as (local user)

[sudo] pip install urwid (--user)
[sudo] pip install psutil (--user)

Install stress (optional)

sudo apt-get install stress

Run the .py file

python -m s_tui.s_tui

OPTIONAL integration of FIRESTARTER (via submodule, does not work on all systems)

FIRESTARTER is a great tool to stress your system to the extreme.If you would like, you can integrate FIRESTARTER submodule into s-tui.

To build FIRESTARTER:

git submodule init
git submodule update
cd ./FIRESTARTER
./code-generator.py
make

Once you have completed these steps, you can either:

• Install FIRESTARTER to make it accessible to s-tui, e.g make a soft-link to FIRESTARTER in /usr/local/bin.
• Run s-tui from the main project directory with python -m s_tui.s_tui
  An option to run FIRESTARTER will then be available in s-tui

Compatibility

s-tui uses psutil to probe hardware information. If your hardware is not supported, you might not see all the information.

s-tui uses urwid as a graphical engine. urwid only works with UNIX-like systems

• Power read is supported on Intel Core CPUs of the second generation and newer (Sandy Bridge)and on AMD Family 17h CPUs through the amd_energy driver.
• s-tui tested to run on Raspberry-Pi 4,3,2,1

FAQ

Q: How is this different from htop?
A: s-tui is not a processes monitor like htop. The purpose is to monitor your CPU statistics and have an option to test the system under heavy load. (Think AIDA64 stress test, not task manager).

Q: I am using the TTY with no X server and s-tui crashes on start
A: By default, s-tui is handles mouse inputs. This causes some systems to crash. Try running s-tui --no-mouse

Q: I am not seeing all the stats in the sidebar.
A: The sidebar is scrollable, you can scroll down with DOWN or j or scroll to the bottom with PG-DN or G. You might consider also decreasing the size of the font that you use in your terminal.:)

Contributing

New issues and Pull Requests are welcome :)

If you notice a bug, please report it as a new issue, using the provided template.

To open a Pull Request, please see CONTRIBUTING for more information.

Tip

If you like this work, please star in on GitHub.

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