2.9BSD/usr/man/cat1/sysline.1
SYSLINE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual SYSLINE(1)
NAME
sysline - display system status on status line of a terminal
SYNOPSIS
sysline [ -bcdehDilmpqrsj ] [ +N ]
DESCRIPTION
_S_y_s_l_i_n_e runs in the background and periodically displays
system status information on the status line of the termi-
nal. Not all terminals contain 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, _s_y_s_l_i_n_e 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 runn-
able process (followed by a `r'), the number of suspended
processes (followed by a `s'), 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 normally
in reverse video (if your terminal supports this in the
status line) and is right justified to reduce distraction.
Every fifth display 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
format
-e Print out only the information. Do not print out the
control commands necessary to put the information on
the bottom line. This option is useful for putting the
output of _s_y_s_l_i_n_e onto the mode line of an emacs win-
dow.
-D Print out the current day/date before the time.
-h Print out the host machine's name after the time.
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SYSLINE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual SYSLINE(1)
-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 _s_y_s_l_i_n_e process onto
standard output upon startup. With this information
you can send the alarm signal to the _s_y_s_l_i_n_e process to
cause it to update immediately. _s_y_s_l_i_n_e 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 _i_f_f
escapes are not allowed in the status line. Some ter-
minals (the Televideos and Freedom 100 for example) do
not allow cursor movement (or other "intelligent"
operations) in the status line. For these terminals,
_s_y_s_l_i_n_e 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
terminals capable of cursor movement on the status
line.
If you have a file .syslinelock in your home directory, then
_s_y_s_l_i_n_e will not update its statistics and write on your
screen, it will just go to sleep for a minute. This is use-
ful if you want to momentarily disable _s_y_s_l_i_n_e. Note that it
may take a few seconds from the time the lock file is
created until you are guaranteed that _s_y_s_l_i_n_e will not write
on the screen.
FILES
/etc/utmp names of people who are logged in
/dev/kmem contains process table
${HOME}/.who information to print on bottom line
${HOME}/.syslinelockwhen it exists, sysline will not print
SEE ALSO
termcap(3X), termcap(5)
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SYSLINE(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual SYSLINE(1)
AUTHOR
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.
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