This is simple app to collect data about system cpu, memory, swap, network, GPU and disk usage over time.
After collecting results into csv file, html file can be created with plot.
I needed a simple and fast application to collect basic information about the amount of RAM used and CPU consumption on a slow(4x1Ghz) 32 bit ARM computer which uses custom Linux OS build with Yocto.
I looked at a few applications like grafana, but they are too heavy or work in a client server architecture which in this case I would prefer to avoid.
You need to install it via cargo or download precompiled binary from releases and then run it in terminal.
This is console app, so that means that you need to use terminal to use it.
./system_info_collector collect --convert-after -o
should once per second print debug message about refreshed CPU and memory usage.
After a while you can click Ctrl+C once to stop collecting data and wait for automatic preparing and opening prepared
html plot data.
SystemInfoCollector.mp4
During testing on i7-4770, app used stable 15-20MB Ram and most of the time, cpu usage was lower than 0.1% - but it may increase when using more resource intensive options like tracking top N processes.
In collect mode, app only needs to read cpu/ram usage and then save it to file, so that is why it uses so little resources.
Converting csv file to html file is more resource intensive, so should be done on more powerful computer.
Example of first lines of csv file (by default compact mode is used: repeated values written as empty, filled back in on read):
INTERVAL_SECONDS=1,CPU_CORE_COUNT=8,MEMORY_TOTAL=23943.89,SWAP_TOTAL=2048.00,UNIX_TIMESTAMP_START_TIME=1690142980.2999594,APP_VERSION=0.7.0,CUSTOM_0=FIREFOX,NET_0=enp8s0,GPU_0=NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
SECONDS_SINCE_START,MEMORY_USED,CPU_USAGE_TOTAL,CPU_USAGE_PER_CORE,CUSTOM_0_CPU,CUSTOM_0_MEMORY,NET_0_RX_BPS,NET_0_TX_BPS,GPU_0_UTIL,GPU_0_VRAM_MB,GPU_0_TEMP_C
0.24,11031.2,49.7,55.1;62.3;44.2;38.7;51.0;48.9;60.1;42.5,0,1111.3,0,0,23,4012,61
1.24,11037.6,,16.8;12.1;18.3;14.5;20.1;17.8;22.3;15.9,2.1,1111.3,0.5,0.1,,4015,
You can look at justfile, for more examples of usage.
Collect used memory and CPU usage in interval of 1 second and save it to system_data.csv file
./system_info_collector collect
Collect and convert csv data and automatically open html file in browser, additionally will show more detailed logs
./system_info_collector collect --convert-after -o
Convert csv data file into html document with plot and open it in browser
./system_info_collector convert -d /home/user/data.csv -p /home/user/plot.html -o
Collect all basic data with interval of 0.2 seconds
./system_info_collector collect --convert-after -o -m memory-used -m memory-free -m memory-available -m cpu-usage-total -m cpu-usage-per-core -c 0.2
Collect memory and CPU usage of selected processes - will try to find process with command containing firefox in
name - FIREFOX name will be used later in plot.
App can only track 1 process with certain name at once, so if two or more processes contain firefox in name, only
info about the first will be collected
./system_info_collector collect -e "FIREFOX|firefox" -e "Event Handler|/usr/bin/event_handler --timeout"
Track the top 10 most CPU-hungry and RAM-hungry processes (grouped by executable path, only those using >1% CPU are logged).
This writes two extra files: system_data_top_cpu.csv and system_data_top_ram.csv.
Note: this option is very resource-intensive as it refreshes all processes on every tick.
./system_info_collector collect --top-n-processes 10
Convert main data file together with top-N process files into a single HTML plot
./system_info_collector convert -d system_data.csv -d system_data_top_cpu.csv -d system_data_top_ram.csv -o
Collect network RX/TX for a specific interface
./system_info_collector collect -m network-rx -m network-tx --network enp8s0
Collect network stats for all non-virtual interfaces
./system_info_collector collect -m network-rx -m network-tx --all-networks
List all available network interfaces and exit
./system_info_collector collect --list-networks
Collect disk used/available space for specific mount points
./system_info_collector collect -m disk-used -m disk-available --disk / --disk /home
Collect disk stats for all non-virtual disks
./system_info_collector collect -m disk-used --all-disks
List all available disks and exit
./system_info_collector collect --list-disks
Collect GPU utilization, VRAM usage and temperature (NVIDIA via NVML, AMD/Intel via sysfs)
./system_info_collector collect -m gpu-utilization -m gpu-memory-used -m gpu-temperature
Start live HTTP server on port 5998 (open http://localhost:5998/ in browser)
./system_info_collector collect --serve --port 5998 --max-results 1000
Shows help about available arguments
./system_info_collector --help
Simple way to collect OS data from start is to create a simple systemd service.
To do this, copy app into /usr/bin folder and create folder for collected data
sudo cp system_info_collector /usr/bin/system_info_collector
sudo mkdir -p /opt/system_info_collector/ # To collect reports
creating service content
sudo touch /etc/systemd/system/system-info-collector.service
sudo gedit /etc/systemd/system/system-info-collector.service # open it with any text editor - I used gedit
paste this code with modified arguments:
[Unit]
Description=System Data Collector
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/system_info_collector collect -d /opt/system_info_collector/data.csv
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
now start service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start system-info-collector
sudo systemctl status system-info-collector # This should print "active (running)" if everything works fine, if there is failure, check log to see what happened
sudo systemctl enable system-info-collector # To enable running service when OS starts
now you can convert collected data with simple command
system_info_collector convert -d /opt/system_info_collector/data.csv -p /tmp/plot.html -o
Cpu usage is shown in range between 0 and 100%, if computer has more than 1 core, cpu usage is divided by number of cores, to get value in proper range.
cpu-usage-per-core stores all core values semicolon-separated in a single CSV column. The HTML plot and the live
web interface both expand it into one line per core automatically.
Memory and swap usage are shown in MiB, with range from 0 to total memory/swap size.
When checking for processes -1 is visible both in cpu/memory plot if searched process is not found.
When --top-n-processes N is used, two extra CSV files are written alongside the main data file:
system_data_top_cpu.csv— top N processes by CPU%, sorted descendingsystem_data_top_ram.csv— top N processes by RAM usage, sorted descending
Processes are grouped by their executable path (not the OS process name), so multiple instances of the same binary (e.g. Firefox content processes) are aggregated into a single entry. Only processes using more than 1% of total CPU are included in the CPU ranking. Kernel and userland threads are excluded.
Pass both extra files to convert with -d to include them as additional charts in the HTML plot.
Network RX/TX rates are collected in MB/s. Use --network <iface> to track specific interfaces or --all-networks
to track all non-virtual ones. Run with --list-networks to see available interfaces.
Disk used/available space is collected in GB. Use --disk <mount> to track specific mount points (e.g. /, /home)
or --all-disks to track all non-virtual disks. Run with --list-disks to see available disks.
GPU utilization (%), VRAM usage (MB) and temperature (°C) are collected automatically when any of the GPU modes are selected. NVIDIA GPUs are accessed via NVML; AMD and Intel GPUs are accessed via sysfs. Multiple GPUs are supported, each appearing as a separate column.
Compatibility between different versions of app is not guaranteed, so if you want to collect or create graphs from csv file, be sure that you use the same version of app (csv file contains inside info which version of app was used).
Usually incompatibilities are quite easy to workaround by manually adding/removing records from csv file.
Currently, fully supported is only Linux, due to using manually reading /proc files (performance reasons).
App should also fully work on Mac, but on Windows capturing process cpu/memory usage is not supported (except that, everything should work fine).
The application has a built-in HTTP server that allows you to view live data in your web browser.
Run with the --serve option (optionally with --port and --max-results):
./system_info_collector collect --serve --port 5998 --max-results 1000
After starting, open your browser and go to http://localhost:5998/.
- CPU chart – total CPU usage and/or per-core breakdown (one line per core)
- RAM chart
- GPU charts – utilization, VRAM and temperature (one chart each, one line per GPU)
- Data table – with text information about current metrics
- Auto-refresh – ability to set the refresh interval or leave it to manual refresh
- Dark mode
- No external dependencies – static files (e.g. Chart.js) are embedded in the binary and served by the backend
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2023-2026 Rafał Mikrut and contributors