The Sensor Browser
Prev
Next

The Sensor Browser

The sensor browser displays the registered hosts and their sensors in a tree form. Click on the tree handles to open or close a branch. Each sensor monitors a certain system value.

Connecting to other hosts

To connect to a new host use Connect Hosts from the File menu. A dialog box will appear and allows you to enter the name of the host you want to connect to. Below the name you can choose the connection method. The default is ssh, the secure shell. Alternatively the rsh, the remote shell, or the daemon mode can be used. Click OK to establish the connection. Shortly afterwards the new host will appear in the sensor browser and you can browse the list of sensors.

To establish a connection, a program called ksysguardd, that can be started in the following two modes, must be installed on the new host.

daemon mode

You can start ksysguardd at boot time in Daemon mode by adding -d as the argument. In this case, you have to select daemon mode at the connection dialog of ksysguard. A disadvantage of this connection type is that you won't be able to kill or renice a process with the Process Controller and the data exchange over network won't be encrypted.

shell mode

In this mode ksysguardd is started at connecting time by ksysguard. To make that possible, its location needs to be included in your PATH. Unfortunately the ssh does not source your .profile file, so your regular PATH setting will not be available. Instead it uses a default PATH like /bin:/usr/bin. Since it is very likely that KDE is not installed in these folders you need to create or update a file in your home folder. The file is called environment and needs to be in a hidden folder called .ssh. See the manual page for ssh for more details. The file needs to contain a line similar to:

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/kde/bin

assuming that ksysguardd can be found under /opt/kde/bin/ksysguardd.

Tip

When using ssh you should make sure that you have your identity.pub installed on the remote machine and the host key of the remote machine is already registered on your machine. The easiest way to check this is to type ssh remotehost ksysguardd in a shell. If you are greeted by ksysguardd you can type quit and everything is in order.

Note

For experts: ksysguardd is a very small program that is only linked against the libc. So it can also be used on machines that do not have a full blown KDE installed, such as servers. If you choose the custom command option in the host connector you need to specify the complete command to start ksysguardd.

Disconnecting hosts

To disconnect from a host, select the host in the sensor browser and choose Disconnect Host from the File menu. If you still have sensors in use, the display frames will be grayed and the displays won't update any longer.

Prev
Next
Home


Would you like to make a comment or contribute an update to this page?
Send feedback to the KDE Docs Team