My htop Setup + Tips on making your own!
Tags: linux, htop, monitoring, terminal
Published: 2023-07-27 18:08:29


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/rcgspxu5ia50x9ttp5id.png)

# This is my current setup for htop!



Some different settings that I've put are described below:

- Tree view for processes

> With this config, its possible to visually see the  tree of what process spawned that child process. And it's a lot easier to manage it, if you need to kill the app, you can see the head process easier :)

- Graph Option to see Memory and CPU

> With this visualization, is possible to get some history of the average use of it and it's very cool!

- Disk usage and Network Throughput

> More Information about data transfers happening in your machine

---


# Here's the config file I'm using

```
# Copy or symlink this file to ~/.config/htop/htoprc
# Beware! This file is rewritten by htop when settings are changed in the interface.
# The parser is also very primitive, and not human-friendly.
fields=0 48 17 18 38 39 40 2 46 47 49 1
sort_key=111
sort_direction=1
tree_sort_key=1
tree_sort_direction=1
hide_kernel_threads=1
hide_userland_threads=1
shadow_other_users=0
show_thread_names=0
show_program_path=1
highlight_base_name=0
highlight_megabytes=1
highlight_threads=1
highlight_changes=0
highlight_changes_delay_secs=5
find_comm_in_cmdline=1
strip_exe_from_cmdline=1
show_merged_command=0
tree_view=1
tree_view_always_by_pid=0
header_margin=1
detailed_cpu_time=1
cpu_count_from_one=0
show_cpu_usage=1
show_cpu_frequency=0
show_cpu_temperature=1
degree_fahrenheit=0
update_process_names=0
account_guest_in_cpu_meter=0
color_scheme=5
enable_mouse=1
delay=15
left_meters=Hostname Uptime Battery Blank Blank AllCPUs2 Blank CPU CPU
left_meter_modes=2 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 2
right_meters=Systemd LoadAverage Tasks Blank Blank DiskIO NetworkIO Swap Memory Blank Memory Memory
right_meter_modes=2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 3 2
hide_function_bar=0
```
 [🔗 View it on gist](https://gist.github.com/janjitsu/8757fa457da826a752c305a436de853d)

---

If you wanna use my config, just copy or symlink this file to your home directory local htop config in `~/.local/htop/htoprc`

## Or to start using it, you can just run this oneliner!


```
mv ~/.config/htop/htoprc ~/.config/htop/htoprc.bkp && \
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/janjitsu/8757fa457da826a752c305a436de853d/raw/b9ef168ad405cf2fa8dd13708eeff2371e046392/htoprc \
-P ~/.config/htop && htop
``` 


If anything goes wrong and you decide to go back to your previous config, previous oneliner is first moving your current htoprc to htoprc.bkp, so you can just move it back like that

```
mv ~/.config/htop/htoprc.bkp ~/.config/htop/htoprc
```

---

# Making your own htop setup


If you are adventurous enough, you can setup your own meters and configs inside htop itself

just open htop and press F2 for going to the setup system.

Follow along while we add another meter to our setup

### Example - Adding a clock to our panel

**open htop and press F2**, you will see the setup menu


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qvl864enmzsdx554051w.png)

**Press right right right and enter** to select clock meter it will be put in the right column. 


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/yxltq4elb5wqvxuq49g9.png)

**Press Space** to change the style of the meter, lets change it to LED, then **press Enter** to confirm.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dk40jo9l45bdfj5jsh3e.png)

**Press Esc** To see our final htop


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ay1sbpa3mxqv9qo2v1m2.png)


When you close htop, **pressing F10** or clicking on the menu to quit if you got mouse enabled, this config will be saved to the same `htoprc` file we were fiddling with it 

---

## More Tips

> In the availabe meters column you can use the up and down arrows to chose other meters.

> You can also use Blank as a separator, in my setup, you can see I'm using some blanks there too.

## Wrapping up

I hope you liked my tutorial and If you create some cool setup, make sure you publish it using the tag `#htop` and drop it in the comments. :)

_htop é top!_ 🔝

<small>
This post was inspired by [htop: Quick Guide & Customization](https://haydenjames.io/htop-quick-guide-customization/)
</small>