How to show historical and statistical running time of linux systems

The important part of the system administrators is to monitor and examine for a way long Linux system has been strolling. It is a just right concept to hold tracking up time of the Linux systems to optimise the system assets. This article describes Tuptime tool that can help System Administrators to know for how long a Linux machine has been up and running.

Tuptime tool is used for reporting the historical and statistical running time (uptime) of Linux systems, which tracks it between restarts.

Features

• Register the first boot time
• Tracks System startups
• Counts System shutdowns
• Calculates uptime and downtime
• Calculates largest, average, low uptime and downtime
• Print current uptime

Installing Tuptime Tool

To install Tuptime tool, the following pre-installed requirements should be fulfilled

• Python 2.7 or 3.X established but the latest variation is advocated.
• Python modules (sys, os, optparse, sqlite3, datetime, locale, platform, subprocess, time).
• Linux Operating system

To find the installed python on Linux, use the following command –

$ apt-cache search python | egrep "^python2.[0-9] " --color

The sample output should be like this –

python2.7 - Interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 2.7)

If your system does not have python installation, use the following command to install python-

$ sudo apt-get install python2.7

The sample output should be like this –

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
python3.1-minimal
Suggested packages:
python3.1-doc python3.1-profiler
The following NEW packages will be installed:
python3.1 python3.1-minimal
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
Need to get 5,444 kB of archives.
After this operation, 19.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ squeeze/main python3.1-minimal amd64 3.1.3-1 [1,669 kB]
Get:2 http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ squeeze/main python3.1 amd64 3.1.3-1 [3,775 kB]
Fetched 5,444 kB in 27s (201 kB/s)
...........................

To clone Tuptime repository from git, use the following command –

$ cd /tmp
$ git clone https://github.com/rfrail3/tuptime.git
$ ls
$ cd tuptime
$ ls

The sample output should be like this –

~$ cd /tmp
/tmp$ git clone https://github.com/rfrail3/tuptime.git
Cloning into 'tuptime'...
remote: Counting objects: 2171, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (34/34), done.
remote: Total 2171 (delta 21), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 2137
Receiving objects: 100% (2171/2171), 749.33 KiB | 296.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1056/1056), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
/tmp$ ls
aptdaemon-A0RrYd sni-qt_vlc_15046-UFPBar unity_support_test.0
config-err-X4Efq6 sni-qt_vlc_15117-3D0jOa
orbit-linux tuptime
/tmp$ cd tuptime
/tmp/tuptime$ ls
CHANGELOG LICENSE scripts tuptime-install.sh
debian README.md src tuptime-manual.txt

Install tuptime-install.sh as shown below –

# chmod +x tuptime-install.sh
# ./tuptime-install.sh

The sample output should be like this –

Tuptime installation script
Clonning repository...
Cloning into '/tmp/tmp.P6j2npOJVU'...
remote: Counting objects: 2171, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (34/34), done.
remote: Total 2171 (delta 21), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 2137
Receiving objects: 100% (2171/2171), 749.33 KiB | 318.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1056/1056), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Copying files...
Creating tuptime user...
Creating tuptime db
Setting tuptime db ownership
Executing tuptime with tuptime user for testing
Copying init debian file...
update-rc.d: warning: default start runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match tuptime Default-Start values (1 2 3 4 5)
update-rc.d: warning: default stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match tuptime Default-Stop values (0 6)
....................................

Using Tuptime

To run Tuptime, use the following command-

# tuptime

The sample output should be like this –

System startups:    1 since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
System shutdowns:   0 ok - 0 bad
System uptime:      100.0 % - 1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds
System downtime:    0.0 % - 0 seconds
System life:        1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds
Largest uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
Shortest uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
Average uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds
Largest downtime:   0 seconds
Shortest downtime:  0 seconds
Average downtime: 0 seconds
Current uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 18 minutes and 8 seconds since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016

To display output along date and time, use the following command –

# tuptime --date='%H:%M:%S %d-%m-%Y'

The sample output should be like this –

System startups:    1 since 12:16:47 08-03-2016
System shutdowns:   0 ok - 0 bad
System uptime:      100.0 % - 1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds
System downtime:    0.0 % - 0 seconds
System life:        1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds
Largest uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds from 12:16:47 08-03-2016
Shortest uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds from 12:16:47 08-03-2016
Average uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds
Largest downtime:   0 seconds
Shortest downtime:  0 seconds
Average downtime: 0 seconds
Current uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 41 seconds since 12:16:47 08-03-2016

To print system file as a list, use the following command –

# tuptime --list

The sample output should be like this –

Startup: 1 at 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
Uptime: 1 day, 2 hours, 21 minutes and 8 seconds

To create an alternative database file to store Tuptime log as shown below –

# tuptime --filedb /tmp/tuptime_testdb.db

The sample output should be like this –

System startups:    1 since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
System shutdowns:   0 ok - 0 bad
System uptime:      100.0 % - 1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds
System downtime:    0.0 % - 0 seconds
System life:        1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds
Largest uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
Shortest uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
Average uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds
Largest downtime:   0 seconds
Shortest downtime:  0 seconds
Average downtime: 0 seconds
Current uptime:     1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 36 seconds since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016

To get information about power off at end state, use the following command –

# tuptime --end --table

The sample output should be like this –

No. Startup Date Uptime Shutdown Date End Downtime

1 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016 1 day, 2 hours, 23 minutes and 42 seconds

To print the kernel information, use the following command –

# tuptime --kernel

The sample output should be like this –

System startups:    1 since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
System shutdowns:   0 ok - 0 bad
System uptime:     100.0 % - 1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds
System downtime:   0.0 % - 0 seconds
System life:       1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds
System kernels:    1
Largest uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
...with kernel:    Linux-4.2.0-30-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty
Shortest uptime:   1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds from 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
...with kernel:    Linux-4.2.0-30-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty
Average uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds
Largest downtime:  0 seconds
...with kernel:    None
Shortest downtime: 0 seconds
...with kernel:    None
Average downtime: 0 seconds
Current uptime:    1 day, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds since 12:16:47 Tuesday 08 March 2016
...with kernel:    Linux-4.2.0-30-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty

To get Tuptime  help information, use the following command –

# tuptime --help

The standard output should be like this –

Usage: tuptime [options]
Options:
   -h, --help show this help message and exit
   -c, --ckernel classify / order by kernel
   -d DATE_FORMAT, --date=DATE_FORMAT date format output
   -e, --end order by end state
   -f FILE, --filedb=FILE database file
   -g, --graceful register a gracefully shutdown
   -k, --kernel print kernel information
   -l, --list enumerate system life as list
   -o, --offtime order by offtime / downtime
   -r, --reverse reverse order
   -s, --seconds output time in seconds and epoch
   -t, --table enumerate system life as table
   -u, --uptime order by uptime
   -v, --verbose verbose output
   -V, --version show version
   -x, --silent update values into db without output

Congratulations! Now, you know “How to show Historical and Statistical Running Time of Linux Systems”. We’ll learn more about these types of commands in our next Linux post. Keep reading!