glances-rs · v0.10.42

A pure-stdlib Rust port of Glances.

glances-rs is a from-scratch Rust reimplementation of Glances, the cross-platform system monitor. CPU, memory, network, disk, processes and a REST API — all built on std, core, and alloc alone. Zero crates.io dependencies. One static binary.

01Why pure stdlib?

Most Rust binaries pull in dozens of crates. glances-rs pulls in none. Every line of platform integration is a direct extern "C" call to libc, or a hand-rolled parser of /proc and /sys. The result:

No supply-chain attack surface. There is no transitive dependency graph to audit, patch, or get compromised by typosquatting.
Deterministic linking. The same source tree always produces the same binary. No yanked crates, no registry outages, no MSRV drift.
Single static binary. Strip, LTO, codegen-units = 1. Drop the executable on a server and run it.
Auditable surface. Every line of unsafe lives under src/platform/linux/ — enforced by lint, not by convention.

02Zero trust in input

In release v0.10.42, the monitor is read-only, but it still listens on ports and parses input. Every byte is untrusted until proven otherwise:

Crate supply chain. No [dependencies] at all — enforced by a build-time lint. There is nothing upstream to compromise.
Memory safety. unsafe only under src/platform/linux/, one portable syscall per block, allowlisted by lint.
Subprocess injection. no_shell lint: Command with explicit argv only, never sh -c.
Paths from flags and config. PathBuf::join only; no format!-built paths.
HTTP and credential exposure. Server binds 0.0.0.0:61208 with auth; no built-in TLS. Password flags never accept argv values (preventing ps leaks); credentials come from stdin prompts or a 0600 password file.

03Project status

The current release is v0.10.42 — the same version pinned in Cargo.toml and surfaced by glances-rs --version. The full changelog lives on GitHub Releases and in CHANGELOG.md.

v0.10.42 ships with 633 lib unit and integration tests, and four hard invariants (no_deps, line_cap_256, unsafe_allowlist, no_shell) that run on every push.

04Quick start

One-line install on Linux (verifies SHA-256, drops the binary into ${XDG_BIN_HOME:-$HOME/.local/bin}):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UberMetroid/glances-rs/rust/install.sh -o install.sh
sh install.sh

Prefer to audit first? The script self-verifies against the published install.sh.sha256 before doing anything. Linux x86_64/aarch64 only; other hosts build from source with cargo build --release.

Build from source:

cargo build --release

Show the full CLI surface (same flag set as upstream Python Glances):

./target/release/glances-rs --help

Launch the HTTP server on the default port 61208:

./target/release/glances-rs --webserver

The web mode serves the REST API and the Vue browser UI on http://localhost:61208. Auth is read from the configured password file; the server speaks HTTP/1.1 with chunked SSE for live stats push.

05License

LGPL-3.0-only. The license matches upstream Glances so the Rust port can be linked into GPL-compatible systems without relicensing friction. See LICENSE in the repo root.