SYSLINE(1) RISC/os Reference Manual 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 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, 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 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 hear-
ing.
-c Clear the status line for 5 seconds before each
redisplay.
-d Debug mode -- print status line data in human
readable format.
-D Print out the current day/date before the time.
-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 sysline onto
the mode line of an emacs window.
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-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. 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.
-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 standard output upon startup. With this
information you can send the alarm signal to the
sysline process to cause it to update immedi-
ately. 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 terminals 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
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screen, it will just go to sleep for a minute. This is use-
ful 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
/usr/spool/rwho/whod.*
who/uptime information for remote hosts
${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.
ORIGIN
4.3 BSD
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