probefetch.py

A compact, single-file system information collector for Linux, macOS, BSD, and Solaris.

Outputs a single line of machine-readable system telemetry, colored with ANSI 256 / truecolor themes. Zero external dependencies — just Python 3.8+ and a Unix-like operating system.

Host: atlas - OS: Linux 6.8.0/x86_64 - Distro: Ubuntu 24.04 - CPU: 8 x AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (3700.00 MHz) - GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8192MB (5888 CUDA cores) - Processes: 312 - Uptime: 14d 6h 32m - Users: 1 - Load Average: 0.83 - Memory Usage: 7842.50MB/16384.00MB (47.86%) - Disk Usage: 186.42GB/512.00GB (36.41%)

Author: Jeremy Anderson
Website: git.dcos.net/dcosnet/probefetch
License: MIT

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Features

• Default mode — hostname, OS, distro, CPU, GPU, processes, uptime, users, load average, memory, disk, network traffic.
• Seven special modes — --devel, --admin, --devops, --kernel, --pkgs, --security, --net — each outputs its own compact line.
• Stealth / sleuth mode — --sleuth or --stealth avoids spawning any subprocesses. Only file-based probes (/proc, /sys, /etc) are used, making it safe for constrained or audited environments.
• Color themes — auto-detected terminal color depth, with eight built-in themes: auto, dark, light, solarized, dracula, gruvbox, nord, mono.
• Per-section toggles — show or hide any section by name, or use --battery and --network to include those by default.
• 60+ distro detection — identifies Linux distributions through /etc/os-release, /usr/lib/os-release, release-file fingerprints, and /etc/issue fallback.
• Cross-architecture CPU detection — handles x86, ARM, Alpha, IA-64, MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC, S/390, SH, and SPARC.
• GPU detection — NVIDIA (via nvidia-smi), AMD, and Intel GPUs through sysfs PCI device tree, with VRAM reporting and lspci fallback.
• Accurate memory metrics — uses kernel MemAvailable (since 3.14) when present, falling back to the traditional MemFree + Buffers + Cached estimation.
• Filtered disk metrics — on Linux, aggregates only physical block devices (/dev/sd*, /dev/nvme*, /dev/vd*, etc.), excluding loop devices, network mounts, and virtual filesystems.

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Special Modes

Flag	What it shows
--devel	Languages, compilers, build tools, and package managers (Python, Node, Go, Rust, Java, PHP, Ruby, Perl, GCC, CMake, Git, pip, npm, Cargo, etc.)
--admin	Administration panels, databases, monitoring, and web servers (Cockpit, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Prometheus, Grafana, nginx, Apache, Caddy, Redis, RabbitMQ, etc.)
--devops	Containers, orchestration, IaC, CI/CD, and cloud CLIs (Docker, Podman, kubectl, Helm, OpenTofu, Ansible, Jenkins, AWS CLI, GitHub CLI, etc.)
--kernel	Kernel version, compiler, security modules (SELinux, AppArmor, Smack, Yama), and loaded module count
--pkgs	Installed package count per detected package manager (dpkg, rpm, pacman, apk, emerge, xbps, nix, dnf, zypper)
--security	Firewall status, hardening tools (UFW, firewalld, Fail2Ban, Lynis, ClamAV, etc.), ASLR, dmesg/kptr restrictions
--net	Network interfaces, IPs, gateway, DNS servers, and TCP connection counts

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Color Themes

--theme=auto       # Auto-detect terminal color depth (default)
--theme=dark       # Cornflower blue labels on dark terminals
--theme=light      # Navy labels on light terminals
--theme=solarized  # Solarized palette
--theme=dracula    # Dracula palette
--theme=gruvbox    # Gruvbox palette
--theme=nord       # Nord palette
--theme=mono       # Bold/dim only, no color

Themes adapt automatically to the terminal's color support: truecolor (24-bit) when available, xterm-256 as fallback, 16-color as last resort, and plain text when stdout is not a TTY.

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Platform Support

Platform	Default Mode	Special Modes	Stealth Mode
Linux	Full	Full	Full
macOS	Partial	Partial	Limited
FreeBSD	Partial	Partial	Limited
OpenBSD	Partial	Partial	Limited
NetBSD	Partial	Partial	Limited
DragonFly BSD	Partial	Partial	Limited
Solaris	Partial	Limited	Limited

"Partial" means some information (e.g., GPU, battery) may be unavailable depending on the specific system configuration. Stealth mode limits all platforms to file-based probes only.

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Per-Section Toggles

Show only the sections you care about by passing their names as arguments:

probefetch.py hostname cpu memory disk
probefetch.py distro uptime loadaverage
probefetch.py --battery --network

Available section names: hostname, os, distro, cpu, gpu, processes, uptime, users, loadaverage, battery, memory, disk, network.

When section names are given, all other sections are disabled.

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Requirements

• Python 3.8 or later
• A Unix-like operating system (Linux, macOS, BSD, Solaris)
• No external Python packages required

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Credits

Based on sysinfo.pl by:

• David Rudie <d.rudie@gmail.com>
• Travis Morgan <imbezol@criticaldamage.com>
• Nils Goers <weechatter@arcor.de>

Rewritten in Python as probefetch by Jeremy Anderson with expanded platform support, color themes, stealth mode, and additional special modes.

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License

MIT License. See LICENSE for the full text.