How to Install and Use Scout_Realtime for Real‑Time Linux Server Monitoring

Overview

Scout_Realtime is a lightweight web‑based utility that visualizes Linux server metrics—including CPU, memory, disk, network, and the top ten processes—in real‑time charts similar to the classic top command.

Prerequisites

Ruby 1.9.3 or newer and the rubygems package must be present on the target machine.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install rubygems RHEL/CentOS: sudo yum -y install rubygems-devel Fedora 22+:

sudo dnf -y install rubygems-devel

Install Scout_Realtime

After Ruby is ready, install the monitoring tool via the gem command:

sudo gem install scout_realtime

Start the Daemon

Launch the Scout_Realtime daemon to begin collecting metrics: scout_realtime The daemon prints a few deprecation warnings, then reports “Daemon has started successfully”.

To view the web UI you have two options:

SSH tunnel : ssh -NL 5555:localhost:5555 user@ip_or_hostname then open http://localhost:5555 in a browser.

Open firewall port : sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5555 -j ACCEPT (or the equivalent command for your distro) and open http://your‑ip‑or‑hostname:5555.

Firewall Configuration per Distribution

Debian/Ubuntu (UFW):

sudo ufw allow 5555
sudo ufw reload

RHEL/CentOS 6.x (iptables):

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5555 -j ACCEPT
sudo service iptables restart

RHEL/CentOS 7.x (firewalld):

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=5555/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd reload

Accessing the UI

From any other machine, open a web browser and navigate to either:

http://localhost:5555

http://<em>ip‑address‑or‑domain</em>:5555

Log File

The daemon writes logs to ~/.scout/scout_realtime.log. View them with:

cat ~/.scout/scout_realtime.log

Stopping and Uninstalling

To stop the daemon: scout_realtime stop To remove the tool completely:

gem uninstall scout_realtime

Further Information

Additional details and source code are available in the Scout_Realtime GitHub repository.