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authorMartin Baulig <martin@src.gnome.org>1999-10-18 19:49:38 +0000
committerMartin Baulig <martin@src.gnome.org>1999-10-18 19:49:38 +0000
commit94297b8460b004e75f188b2afc5898d55636b092 (patch)
tree2f1a6b953264cd256c2560cd6c6a18eb629bb97d
parent0f5b941b15e638c3edc0de57f1f994ad897eb741 (diff)
downloadlibgtop-94297b8460b004e75f188b2afc5898d55636b092.tar.gz
Added release notes for LibGTop 1.0.6.
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+RELEASE NOTES FOR LIBGTOP 1.0.6
+===============================
+
+OVERVIEW
+--------
+
+LibGTop is a library that read information about processes and the
+running systems. This information include:
+
+General System Information:
+
+cpu - CPU Usage
+mem - Memory Usage
+swap - Swap Usage (including paging activity)
+loadavg - Load average (including nr_running, nr_tasks, last_pid)
+uptime - Uptime and Idle time, can be calculated from CPU usage
+
+SYS V IPC Limits:
+
+shm_limits - Shared Memory Limits
+msg_limits - Message Queue Limits
+sem_limits - Semaphore Set Limits
+
+Network:
+
+netload - Network load
+ppp - PPP statistics
+
+Process List:
+
+proclist - List of processes
+
+Process information:
+
+proc_state - cmd, state, uid, gid
+proc_uid - uid,euid,gid,egid,pid,ppid,pgrp
+ session,tty,tpgid,priority,nice
+proc_mem - size,vsize,resident,share,rss,rss_rlim
+proc_time - start_time,rtime,utime,stime,cutime,cstime
+ timeout,it_real_value,frequency
+proc_signal - signal,blocked,sigignore,sigcatch
+proc_kernel - k_flags,min_flt,maj_flt,cmin_flt,cmaj_flt
+ kstk_esp,kstk_eip,nwchan,wchan
+proc_segment - text_rss,shlib_rss,data_rss,stack_rss,dirty_size
+ start_code,end_code,start_stack
+
+Process maps:
+
+proc_args - Command line arguments
+proc_map - Process map (/proc/<pid>/maps under Linux)
+
+File system usage:
+
+mountlist - List of currently mounted filesystems
+fsusage - File system usage
+
+PORTABILITY:
+-----------
+
+LibGTop is designed to be as portable as possible. None of the
+functions and retrieved information should be specific to a specific
+operating system. So you only need to port the system dependent part
+of the library to a new system and all application programs can then
+use libgtop on this new system.
+
+CLIENT/SERVER MODEL:
+-------------------
+
+Some systems like DEC OSF/1 or BSD require special privileges for the
+calling process to fetch the required information (SUID root/SGID
+kmem). To solve this problem, I designed a client/server model which
+makes a call to a SUID/SGID server which fetches the required
+information whenever it is required. This server is only called for
+features that really require privileges, otherwise the sysdeps code
+is called directory (every user can get the CPU usage on DEC OSF/1,
+but only root can get information about processes other than the
+current one).
+
+There is also some kind of daemon which can be used to fetch
+information from remote systems (still experimental). This daemon
+normally runs as nobody and calls the SUID/SGID itself when needed.
+
+LIBGTOP AND GNOME:
+-----------------
+
+Although LibGTop is part of the GNOME desktop environment, its main
+interface is totally independent from any particular desktop environment,
+so you can also use it as a standalone library in any piece of GPLed
+software which makes it also a valuable part of the GNU project.
+
+LibGTop is currently used in various places in the GNOME Project,
+for instance in some of the applets in gnome-core and - of cause -
+this ultra-cool application called GTop ...
+
+However, you need to give the configure.in script the `--without-gnome'
+parameter when you want to use LibGTop without GNOME (this is because,
+if you want to use it with GNOME, you need to compile it after the main
+GNOME libraries and I wanted to avoid getting unnecessary bug reports
+about this).
+
+LIBGTOP AND GNOME - PART II:
+---------------------------
+
+LibGTop was tested with FreeBSD 3.0 but it should also work with
+FreeBSD 2.2.7, NetBSD and OpenBSD.
+
+Unfortunately, I don't have the power and disk space to install all
+possible operating systems out there on my machine and test things myself,
+so I depend on people telling me whether it works and sending me bug
+reports and patches if not.
+
+However, I consider FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD as supported systems for
+LibGTop and whenever I get bug reports I will do my best to fix them as
+quickly as possible.
+
+PLATFORM SPECIFIC NOTES FOR LINUX:
+==================================
+
+[I am speaking of the Linux kernel here.]
+
+Under Linux, LibGTop should work without problems and read everything
+from /proc.
+
+LibGTop 0.25 also had an experimental kernel interface to read this
+information directly from the kernel with a system call - but I have
+currently dropped support for this as I am too busy with GNOME
+development to keep current with kernel hacking.
+
+PLATFORM SPECIFIC NOTES FOR SOLARIS:
+====================================
+
+The development branch of LibGTop (the 1.1.x series) has a first version
+of the Solaris port which works at least on Solaris 7.
+
+If you are on a Solaris system and want to give it a try, just fetch the
+latest 1.1.x tarball from ftp://ftp.home-of-linux.org/pub/libgtop/1.1/
+and try it out.
+
+PLATFORM SPECIFIC NOTES FOR BSD:
+=================================
+
+There are a few caveats:
+
+* You need to manually make the `$(prefix)/bin/libgtop_server' SGID to
+ kmem after installation and mount the /proc file system of FreeBSD
+ (/proc/<pid>/mem is used within kvm_uread ()).
+
+* To get the filenames of the process maps displayed in GTop, you need
+ to configure with the `--with-libgtop-inodedb' option (you need GDBM
+ for this to work).
+
+ You have then to create an inode database which is used to look up
+ filenames. This is done using the `mkinodedb' program which comes
+ along with libgtop.
+
+ See the file src/inodedb/README for details:
+
+ The `mkinodedb' program which is build in this directory takes two
+ command line arguments: the full pathname of the database to be
+ created and the name of a configuration file consisting of directory
+ and file names each on a line by itself - see `/etc/ld.so.conf' for
+ an example.
+
+ Putting a directory name in this file means all regular files found
+ in this directory are included in the database, but it will not
+ recursively descend into subdirectories (for instance, we want
+ everything in `/usr/lib' but not every single file in `/usr/lib/sgml').
+ You can also use filenames to include a single file.
+
+Have fun,
+
+Martin <martin@home-of-linux.org>