Raspberry Pi Resource Monitor

There are plenty of resource monitors and graph utilities out there for the Raspberry Pi. RPi-Monitor is a great one. However, I wanted to learn a little more about how to collect data for the various resources, so I made my own simple bash script. Here are some basic commands that can be stringed together to monitor the basic resources of the Raspberry Pi. I output the data to a csv file that can be graphed using gnuplot.

Skip to the bottom for the full script.

First, create a new file using text editor.
nano resourcelog.sh
Start with the basics. Tell the shell to use bash.
#!/bin/bash
Most of the time I am getting time from a GPS dongle. Wait a minute to allow a GPS lock.
sleep 60
Create a date/time variable used to name the log file. I do this so that every time the Pi is powered on, it creates a new file with a name based on the date/time the logging was started.
LABELDATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M")
Make a directory to put the log files.
mkdir -vp /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/
Name the columns in the csv file. You can see we will be logging date, time, degrees celcius of the pi CPU, average CPU loads, free memory, cached memory, swap total, and swap free. This gets put into a new file in the resourcelog_archive directory, using the date variable defined above. (The command should be one line)
echo "Date,Time,Degrees Celcius,CPU 1 Min,CPU 5 min,CPU 15 min,Memory,Free Memory,Cached Memory,Swap Total,Swap Free" > /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/resourcelog_"$LABELDATE".csv
Create a while loop that will query for the info specified. I do this by defining a variable ($CYCLE) and the loop runs while the variable equals the original value (1).
CYCLE=1
while  [ $CYCLE -eq 1 ]
do
Create variables for data gathering. These variables are part of the while loop and are updated every 60 seconds.

Define the current date in YY-MM-DD format.
DATESTAMP=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")
Define the current time in HH:MM format.
TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%H:%M")
Define the temperature of the APU (CPU) in degrees celcius. This command uses vcgencmd measure_temp, shows only data after the = symbol, and then removes the "'C" so we are left with only a decimal number.
TEMP=$(/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp | cut -d '=' -f 2 | sed s/\'C//g)
Define the CPU load average. This runs the loadavg command, only shows the last three fields, and then replaces the spaces with commas, giving an output formatted as 0.0,0.0,0.0
CPU=$(cat /proc/loadavg | cut -d ' ' -f -3 | sed 's/ /,/g')
Define the total amount of memory in kB. This uses /proc/meminfo, finds "MemTotal", displays only column 2, then removes the "kB" so only numbers are output.
 MEMTOTAL=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep MemTotal | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
Define the total amount of free memory. Similar to above, but searches for "MemFree".
MEMFREE=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep MemFree | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
Define the total amount of cached memory. Similar to above, but searches for only matches that start with Cached. (^Cached).
CACHED=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep '^Cached' | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
Define the swap file allocation. Similar to above, but searches for "SwapTotal".
SWAPTOTAL=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep SwapTotal | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
 Define the amount of swap available (unused).
SWAPFREE=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep SwapFree | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
That's all the resources I monitor. Now the variables need to be written to the file created at the beginning of the script. This just writes a new line at the end of the file with the variable specified above seperated by commas.
echo "$DATESTAMP","$TIMESTAMP","$TEMP","$CPU","$MEMTOTAL","$MEMFREE","$CACHED","$SWAPTOTAL","$SWAPFREE" >> /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/resourcelog_"$LABELDATE".csv
 Wait for 60 seconds and then start again.
sleep 60
Close the loop.
done
 Save the file and exit. Make the file executable.
chmod +x resourcelog.sh
Make the file run on every reboot. This assumes you are logged in as the user "pi".
crontab -e
@reboot /home/pi/resourcelog.sh

That's it, the pi will run the resourcelog.sh script every time it's powered on, and record the results in a new file in the resourcelog_archive directory.  Feel free to tell me there's a better way to do this, I'm sure there is something more efficient. The next post will go over creating graphs automatically using gnuplot.

Here is the full code:
       
#!/bin/bash
# Wait for GPS time
sleep 60

LABELDATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M")
mkdir -vp /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/
echo "Date,Time,Degrees Celcius,CPU 1 Min,CPU 5 min,CPU 15 min,Memory,Free Memory,Cached Memory,Swap Total,Swap Free" > /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/resourcelog_"$LABELDATE".csv
CYCLE=1
while  [ $CYCLE -eq 1 ]
do

DATESTAMP=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")
TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%H:%M")
TEMP=$(/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp | cut -d '=' -f 2 | sed s/\'C//g)
CPU=$(cat /proc/loadavg | cut -d ' ' -f -3 | sed 's/ /,/g')
MEMTOTAL=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep MemTotal | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
MEMFREE=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep MemFree | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
CACHED=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep '^Cached' | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
SWAPTOTAL=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep SwapTotal | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')
SWAPFREE=$(cat /proc/meminfo | egrep SwapFree | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//g')


echo "$DATESTAMP","$TIMESTAMP","$TEMP","$CPU","$MEMTOTAL","$MEMFREE","$CACHED","$SWAPTOTAL","$SWAPFREE" >> /home/pi/resourcelog_archive/resourcelog_"$LABELDATE".csv
sleep 60
done

       
 

Virtual Box - Install WIndows 8.1 x64 Eval on OS X host

I recently tried to create a Windows 8.1 VM using virtual box on my Macbook pro, but ran into an error immediately after boot:
Your PC needs to restart.
Please hold down the power button.
Error code: 0x000000C4
The solution is here: http://4sysops.com/forums/topic/windows-server-2012-r2-on-virtual-box-error-0x000000c4/ but it needs to be tweaked slightly for OS X.

Open the terminal and do the following, making sure to use the name of your Win 8 vm instead of [name]

cd VirtualBox\ VMs
VBoxManage setextradata [name] VBoxInternal/CPUM/CMPXCHG16B 1
 That's it!

All Users Desktop in Windows 7

For some reason I have a hard time remembering this. The path for the directory that shows files on the desktop regardless the logged on user is:
C:\Users\Public\Desktop\
That text should be typed directly into an address bar in explorer, or the "Run" dialog box. 

Chrome - Disable Page Thumbnails in New Tabs

The Google Chrome browser has a feature enabled by default that shows thumbnail images of websites you have visited in the past when you open a new tab. I'm not sure about the specifics of the algorithm that determines what is displayed, but it seems to prioritize pages that you visit often. Of course there is also a link to Google's primary money making source, their search service. Why are there two search boxes needed?
Most of the sites I browse with chrome are on private nets...

It's all very convenient, except for when it's not... I think anyone who has spent any amount of time on the internet has clicked a link and seen something they didn't intend on seeing. And of course Chrome, trying to be helpful, decides to show that web page again when you open a new tab or a new browser session.

Enter the "Empty New Tab Page" Chrome app. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab-page/dpjamkmjmigaoobjbekmfgabipmfilij

Once installed, you get a whole lot of nothing when opening a new tab. The only flaw (if you want to call it that) is the new tab will have an unknown character square in the title of the tab until you navigate somewhere.

Happy browsing!