4.3BSD - /usr/man/cat1/sysline.0

SYSLINE(1)                                                          SYSLINE(1)


NAME
       sysline - display system status on status line of a terminal

SYNOPSIS
       sysline [ -bcdewhDilmpqrsj ] [ -H remote ] [ +N ]

DESCRIPTION
       Sysline  runs in the background and periodically displays system status
       information on the status line of the terminal.  Not all terminals con‐
       tain  a  status  line.  Those that do include the h19, concept 108, Ann
       Arbor Ambassador, vt100, Televideo 925/950  and  Freedom  100.   If  no
       flags  are  given,  sysline  displays the time of day, the current load
       average, the change in load average in the last 5 minutes,  the  number
       of users (followed by a ‘u’), the number of runnable  process (followed
       by a ‘r’)[VAX only], the number of suspended processes (followed  by  a
       ‘s’)[VAX only], and the users who have logged on and off since the last
       status report.  Finally, if new mail has arrived, a summary  of  it  is
       printed.   If  there  is  unread mail in your mailbox, an asterisk will
       appear after the display of the number of users.  The display  is  nor‐
       mally  in  reverse  video (if your terminal supports this in the status
       line) and is right justified to reduce distraction.  Every  fifth  dis‐
       play is done in normal video to give the screen a chance to rest.

       If you have a file named .who in your home directory, then the contents
       of that file is printed first.  One common use of this  feature  is  to
       alias  chdir,  pushd, and popd  to place the current directory stack in
       ~/.who after it changes the new directory.

       The following flags may be given on the command line.

       -b          Beep once every half hour and twice every hour,  just  like
                   those obnoxious watches you keep hearing.

       -c          Clear  the status line for 5 seconds before each redisplay.

       -d          Debug mode -- print status line data in human readable for‐
                   mat.

       -D          Print out the current day/date before the time.

       -e          Print  out only the information.  Do not print out the con‐
                   trol commands necessary to put the information on the  bot‐
                   tom  line.  This option is useful for putting the output of
                   sysline onto the mode line of an emacs window.

       -w          Window mode -- print the status on the current line of  the
                   terminal, suitable for use inside a one line window.

       -H remote   Print  the  load  average  on  the  remote host remote [VAX
                   only].  If the host is down, or is not  sending  out  rwhod
                   packets,  then  the  down  time is printed instead.  If the
                   prefix "ucb" is present, then it is removed.

       -h          Print out the host  machine’s  name  after  the  time  [VAX
                   only].

       -l          Don’t print the names of people who log in and out.

       -m          Don’t check for mail.

       -p          Don’t  report  the number of process which are runnable and
                   suspended.

       -r          Don’t display in reverse video.

       +N          Update the status line every N seconds. The default  is  60
                   seconds.

       -q          Don’t print out diagnostic messages if something goes wrong
                   when starting up.

       -i          Print out the process id of the sysline process onto  stan‐
                   dard  output  upon  startup.  With this information you can
                   send the alarm signal to the sysline process to cause it to
                   update  immediately.  sysline writes to the standard error,
                   so you can redirect the standard  output  into  a  file  to
                   catch the process id.

       -s          Print  "short"  form of line by left-justifying iff escapes
                   are not allowed in the status line.   Some  terminals  (the
                   Televideos and Freedom 100 for example) do not allow cursor
                   movement (or other "intelligent" operations) in the  status
                   line.  For these terminals, sysline normally uses blanks to
                   cause right-justification.   This  flag  will  disable  the
                   adding of the blanks.

       -j          Force  the sysline output to be left justified even on ter‐
                   minals capable of cursor movement on the status line.

       If you have a file .syslinelock in your home  directory,  then  sysline
       will  not  update its statistics and write on your screen, it will just
       go to sleep for a minute.  This is useful if you  want  to  momentarily
       disable sysline.  Note that it may take a few seconds from the time the
       lock file is created until you are guaranteed  that  sysline  will  not
       write on the screen.

FILES
       /etc/utmp               names of people who are logged in
       /dev/kmem               contains process table [VAX only]
       /usr/spool/rwho/whod.*  who/uptime information for remote hosts [VAX only]
       ${HOME}/.who            information to print on bottom line
       ${HOME}/.syslinelock    when it exists, sysline will not print

AUTHORS
       John Foderaro
       Tom Ferrin converted it to use termcap.
       Mark Horton added terminfo capability.

BUGS
       If  you  interrupt the display then you may find your cursor missing or
       stuck  on the status line.  The best thing to do is reset the terminal.
       If there is too much for one line, the excess is thrown away.


4.2 Berkeley Distribution        June 5, 1986                       SYSLINE(1)