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30 years ago, `top` was born. `scout_realtime` is `top` for the modern developer.

Note: This project is no longer being maintained or supported.

top terminal

CPU Usage

27.4%

Memory Usage

14%

Disk Utilization

0%

Network Traffic

1 KB/s

Top Processes

	Count ▲▼	CPU % ▲▼	Memory ▲▼

Installation

Install `scout_realtime` on your server, then access locally from your dev box.

On your server:

1

$ gem install scout_realtime

2

$ scout_realtime

Then, on your local computer:

3

$ ssh -NL 5555:localhost:5555 user@ip_or_hostname

Where user@ip_or_hostname is your usual SSH access - this creates an SSH tunnel to your server.

4

Point your browser to http://localhost:5555

browser

Computers have changed a bit since 1984. Shouldn't `top` change too?

Here’s what we’ve updated:

Smooth-scrolling, every-second updating charts.
Trends become clear with the historical context of timeseries charts.
See disk and network activity.
While cpu and memory metrics are displayed via top, no disk or network metrics are shown. We've added disk utilization, disk space, and network traffic. Now all of the key performance metrics are in a single view.
Clearer memory usage metrics.
top's memory used metric is the cause of frequent confusion. It's usually very close to the total memory which makes it look like you are running of out RAM. However, that's not the case: Linux uses all free RAM for the disk buffer cache to make reading data from the disk as efficient as possible. We've removed the buffer cache from the memory numbers.
Grouping processes by name.
The top display can jump around a lot as processes become active. We've grouped processes with the same name together and display the number of processes running. The result? Trends in active processes become much clearer.

Questions

Is `scout_realtime` free?

Yes - and open-source too! View the source on Github. scout_realtime is maintained by the team at Scout, a SaaS server monitoring solution trusted by tens of thousands of developers.

Is `scout_realtime` secure?

The daemon fetches key metrics from you server, stores them in memory, and renders them in your browser - there is no inbound communication and nothing is written to disk. We run it on our own production servers.

What operating systems are supported?

scout_realtime relies heavily on the proc file system to fetch metrics. procfs is available on Linux-based distributions. OSX and FreeBSD do not have full support for procfs and are not supported.

What version of Ruby is required?

You need Ruby 1.9.3+ on your server to run scout_realtime.

Does my server need to have a public IP or domain name?

Yes, you need a public IP or domain name to view scout_realtime in your browser.

Can multiple people view the realtime stats?

Yes. Open a port in your firewall instead of using the SSH tunnel:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5555 -j ACCEPT

The SSH tunnel is a pain. Is there a way to set up persistent access?

Yes, just open a port in your firewall using the iptables command above.

Can I specify a different port to run it on?

Yes.

scout_realtime --help

for options.

Can I specify where the the log and/or PID is written?

Yes.

scout_realtime --help

for options.

How much CPU and memory will this consume if I leave it running?

We've clocked the CPU usage of the scout_realtime daemon at 1% on an Intel Xeon 2.40GHz CPU. Memory usage is around 22 MB. If you turn off the metric collection (by clicking the pause button on the web page), CPU usage will effectively drop to 0%, and you'll still be able to visit the web page and re-enable metrics at any time.

Installing the gem didn't work.

You need Ruby 1.9.3+ on your server to run scout_realtime. Try

which ruby

(to confirm you have Ruby),

ruby -v

(to show Ruby's version), and

which gem

to confirm you have Ruby gems (Ruby's package manager) available.

Where's the log file?

By default, the a log is written to ~/.scout/scout_realtime.log

How do I stop the daemon?

scout_realtime stop

How do I uninstall `scout_realtime`?

gem uninstall scout_realtime