A btop-inspired TUI dashboard for monitoring multiple Linux servers over SSH.

Overview

rktop is a live terminal dashboard for monitoring multiple Linux servers from one screen. It runs locally, collects read-only metrics over SSH, and renders CPU, memory, network, disk, uptime, kernel, hostname, and optional CPU temperature in btop-style cards.

• live by default: rktop
• no remote agent or remote install
• optional/offline hosts can be hidden
• btop-inspired braille graphs, bars, and aligned terminal layout
• multiple disks, ZFS pool summaries, aliases, and per-host disk row limits

Install

Debian / Ubuntu (recommended)

wget https://github.com/Kinetic27/rktop/releases/download/v0.1.6/rktop_0.1.6_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./rktop_0.1.6_amd64.deb
rktop config
rktop doctor
rktop

Portable release

Use this when you want rktop and config.toml to stay in one extracted folder.

RKTOP_VERSION=v0.1.6
wget "https://github.com/Kinetic27/rktop/releases/download/${RKTOP_VERSION}/rktop_${RKTOP_VERSION#v}_linux_x86_64.tar.gz"
tar -xzf "rktop_${RKTOP_VERSION#v}_linux_x86_64.tar.gz"
cd rktop
./rktop config
./rktop doctor
./rktop

macOS

Experimental: run rktop on macOS to monitor Linux SSH hosts. Local macOS metrics are not implemented yet.

RKTOP_VERSION=v0.1.6
wget "https://github.com/Kinetic27/rktop/releases/download/${RKTOP_VERSION}/rktop_${RKTOP_VERSION#v}_macos_x86_64.tar.gz"
tar -xzf "rktop_${RKTOP_VERSION#v}_macos_x86_64.tar.gz"
cd rktop
./rktop config
./rktop doctor
./rktop

Windows

Portable zip:

$Version = "v0.1.6"
Invoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/Kinetic27/rktop/releases/download/$Version/rktop_${Version}_windows_x86_64.zip" -OutFile rktop.zip
Expand-Archive .\rktop.zip -DestinationPath . -Force
cd .\rktop
.\rktop.exe config
.\rktop.exe doctor
.\rktop.exe

User PATH installer:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kinetic27/rktop/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex"

Windows support is scoped to SSH monitoring: native rktop.exe can monitor Linux SSH hosts. Local Windows metrics are not implemented yet.

Source build

git clone https://github.com/Kinetic27/rktop.git
cd rktop
scripts/install.sh
./.rktop/bin/rktop config
./.rktop/bin/rktop

Source install stays inside the clone under ./.rktop/.

Configuration

rktop config

rktop config opens the TUI config manager. It can add SSH hosts, add the local Linux machine, test SSH, show ssh-copy-id guidance, reorder hosts, mark hosts optional, and edit disk display options.

Remote hosts need key-based SSH:

ssh -o BatchMode=yes user@host true

No remote writes, installs, or credential prompts are performed. SSH probes and metric collection have bounded timeouts, so broken SSH commands do not hang the app indefinitely.

Useful commands:

rktop doctor
rktop --live --snapshot
rktop edit

Config lookup order:

--config PATH
$RKTOP_CONFIG
./config.toml beside the executable
~/.config/rktop/config.toml or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rktop/config.toml
/etc/rktop/config.toml on Linux
legacy ~/.config/server-tui-monitor/config.toml

Minimal config:

refresh_interval_ms = 1000

[[servers]]
id = "local"
name = "Local"
source = "local"

[[servers]]
id = "server-1"
name = "Server 1"
source = "ssh"
host = "server-1"
optional = false

Support matrix

Running rktop

Environment	Status
Linux x86_64	supported
Debian / Ubuntu	supported with .deb
Windows 10/11	supported for monitoring Linux SSH hosts
macOS	experimental for monitoring Linux SSH hosts

Monitored hosts

Target	Status
Linux over SSH	supported
Local Linux machine	supported
Proxmox host/VM over SSH	supported
Linux NAS / TrueNAS SCALE over SSH	supported when Linux shell access works
TrueNAS CORE / FreeBSD / BSD	not supported
Windows remote	not supported

Remote Linux hosts should provide a POSIX shell, /proc, df, awk, grep, hostname, uname, and base64 when monitored from Windows.

Refresh behavior

refresh_interval_ms is clamped to 100..60000. In the TUI, +/= and - adjust it in 100ms steps. Unix-like machines running rktop use SSH ControlMaster=auto and ControlPersist=10m for faster repeated polling. Windows OpenSSH does not use those Unix socket multiplexing options. Optional hosts that fail are skipped briefly before retrying.

Controls

Key	Action
q, Esc, Ctrl+C	quit
+, =	faster refresh
-	slower refresh

Commands

rktop [--mock|--live] [--snapshot] [--once] [--config PATH]
rktop init [--config PATH] [--force|--print]
rktop config [--config PATH]
rktop setup [--config PATH]
rktop edit [--config PATH]
rktop doctor [--config PATH]

Legacy compatibility wrappers are still packaged: stm, stm-live, stm-mock, and stm-snapshot.

Development

Tests do not open live SSH connections or require remote credentials. Live SSH/manual checks are intentionally outside automated tests.

cargo fmt --check
cargo check --locked
cargo test --locked
cargo build --release --locked

Build a local Debian package:

scripts/build-deb.sh
sudo apt install ./dist/rktop_0.1.6_amd64.deb

Development uses a lightweight Git Flow style. main is stable/release-ready. develop collects the next batch of changes before release merge-back to main, and work happens on topic branches. See docs/branching.md.