rtop 🚀

rtop is a modern, fast, and lightweight terminal-based system resource monitor (TUI) written in Rust. Beyond classic monitoring metrics, rtop offers native Docker/Podman integration and detailed system/process-level disk I/O tracking (read/write speeds) on Linux and macOS.

📸 Demonstration

Here is a preview of the main interface running in dark mode:

🏗️ Architecture

The following diagram illustrates how rtop collects metrics and handles the rendering/event loop:

graph TD
    A[Hardware & OS Stats] --> B(collectors::SystemCollector)
    C[Docker/Podman Engine] --> D(collectors::ContainerCollector)
    
    B --> E[AppState Snapshot]
    D --> E
    
    E -->|1. Detects Env Locale / Defaults to EN| F(localization::translate)
    E -->|2. Ticks every N seconds| G(ui::draw)
    
    G --> H[Views: Main / Process Detail / Container Detail / Logs]
    H -->|Ratatui / Crossterm| I[Terminal Screen Output]
    
    J[Keyboard Events] -->|Tab, F1-F3, Enter, ESC, etc.| E

⚡ Installation

1. Quick Installation Script (Linux & macOS)

Automatically detects your OS and architecture, downloads the latest pre-compiled binary, and installs it to /usr/local/bin/:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/rebienkrdns/rtop/raw/master/install.sh | sh

2. From Crates.io

If you have Cargo installed:

cargo install rtop

3. macOS (Homebrew)

Install rtop via our custom Homebrew formula tap:

brew tap rebienkrdns/rtop
brew install rtop

4. Packages for Linux Distributions

Download the packages directly from the GitHub Releases:

• Debian/Ubuntu (.deb): sudo dpkg -i rtop_*.deb
• RHEL/CentOS/Fedora (.rpm): sudo rpm -i rtop_*.rpm

5. Compiling from Source

git clone https://github.com/rebienkrdns/rtop.git
cd rtop
cargo build --release

The optimized binary will be located in target/release/rtop.

📊 Comparison with Alternatives

⚙️ Configuration

rtop stores its configuration file at ~/.config/rtop/config.toml (or using the path specified by the RTOP_CONFIG_PATH environment variable). The file is generated automatically with default values the first time the program is launched.

config.toml Example

# Refresh interval in seconds (supported values: 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0, 30.0, 60.0)
refresh_interval_secs = 2.0

# Default disk device to monitor for I/O (e.g., "nvme0n1", "sda")
# If set to None, rtop tries to autodetect the primary disk
selected_disk = "nvme0n1"

# Default network interface to monitor (e.g., "eth0", "wlan0")
# If set to None, it aggregates traffic of all active interfaces
selected_nic = "eth0"

# Active tab at startup ("processes" or "containers")
default_tab = "processes"

# Column to sort processes by ("cpu", "memory", "pid", "name")
process_sort_column = "cpu"

# Show or hide Swap memory section
show_swap = true

# Custom path to the Docker socket (e.g., "/var/run/docker.sock")
# docker_socket_path = "/var/run/docker.sock"

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

🌐 Dynamic Localization

rtop defaults to English. On startup, it checks standard environment variables (LANG, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES) to determine the system locale. If your system is set to Spanish (e.g. starting with es), the interface and command-line help options will automatically adjust to Spanish.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

1. Docker Socket Permission Error

If you get a connection error when switching to the Containers tab:

• Ensure your user is added to the docker group:

  sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
  

  (Log out and back in to apply group changes).
• If you are running Podman or a non-standard socket, specify the route using docker_socket_path in config.toml.

2. File System /proc Permissions

In highly restricted containerized environments, rtop might fail to read /proc.

• Ensure your container is run with proper host access:

  docker run --privileged -v /proc:/host/proc:ro rtop
  

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.