Learn more about your Linux system with inxi

Gathering information about Linux systems is an essential sysadmin task. There are many tools that can help in this regard. However, one command that can gather a lot of information with only a few options and parameters is inxi.

The inxi tool is a full-featured CLI utility that displays all kinds of system information in your console/terminal/shell or in your IRC client. It gathers this information from a variety of sources about your system, so you can see what you want in an easy-to-use format.

[ You might also like: Linux tools: Getting the message out with dmesg ]

Installing inxi

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems do not have inxi installed by default. It is available through the epel-release repository. To install inxi, execute the following commands on your system

On RHEL 7, install inxi using the yum command:

# yum install -y epel-release
# yum install -y inxi

On RHEL 8, the dnf command looks like this:

# dnf install -y epel-release
# dnf install -y inxi

Below is a synopsis of all the inxi command options:

inxi [-AbBCdDEfFGhiIjJlLmMnNopPrRsSuUVwzZ]

When inxi is run without any options, it displays one line of system data and the inxi version:

# inxi

CPU: Single Core Intel Core i5-7360U (-MCP-) speed: 2304 MHz Kernel: 4.18.0-240.22.1.el8_3.x86_64 x86_64 Up: 19h 39m 
Mem: 371.9/810.7 MiB (45.9%) Storage: 14.01 GiB (36.3% used) Procs: 118 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.03

Note: inxi can be run with normal user privileges, but if possible, use a privileged account as some of the options require additional access.

Examples

To show basic system information, run the command with this option:

# inxi -b 

Here is sample output from a virtual machine (output truncated for brevity):

System:    Host: server1 Kernel: 4.18.0-240.22.1.el8_3.x86_64 x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty pts/0 
           Distro: Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.4 (Ootpa) 
Machine:   Type: Virtualbox System: innotek product: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: N/A 
           Mobo: Oracle model: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: N/A BIOS: innotek v: VirtualBox date: 12/01/2006 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 50.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 50.0/50.0 Wh (100.0%) volts: 10.0 min: 10.0 
CPU:       Info: Single Core Intel Core i5-7360U [MCP] speed: 2304 MHz 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
           Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 14.01 GiB used: 5.07 GiB (36.2%) 
Info:      Processes: 121 Uptime: 18h 34m Memory: 810.7 MiB used: 369.6 MiB (45.6%) Init: systemd runlevel: 3 Shell: Bash 
           inxi: 3.3.03 

To show the full system output, use:

# inxi -F

<Long list - omitted>

To show just CPU information:

# inxi -C

CPU:       Info: Single Core model: Intel Core i5-7360U bits: 64 type: MCP cache: L2: 4 MiB 
           Speed: 2304 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2304 

To show the network device(s) and driver:

# inxi -N 

Network:   Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
           Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 

To display advanced network device info, such as interface, speed, MAC ID, state, etc., run:

# inxi -n 

Network:   Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
           IF: enp0s3 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 08:00:27:e6:6a:a9 
           Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 

To see hard disk information:

# inxi -D

Drives:    Local Storage: total: 14.01 GiB used: 5.12 GiB (36.6%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: VirtualBox model: VBOX HARDDISK size: 14.01 GiB 

To show repositories configured on the system:

# inxi -r 

Repos:     No active yum repos in: /etc/yum.conf 
           Active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-modular.repo 
           1: epel-modular ~ https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-modular-$releasever&arch=$basearch&infra=$infra&content=$contentdir
           No active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-playground.repo 
           No active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-testing-modular.repo 
           No active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-testing.repo 
           Active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo 
           1: epel ~ https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-$releasever&arch=$basearch&infra=$infra&content=$contentdir
           Active yum repos in: /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo 
           1: satellite-tools-6.9-for-rhel-8-x86_64-eus-debug-rpms ~ https://cdn.redhat.com/content/eus/rhel8/$releasever/x86_64/sat-tools/6.9/debug
           2: satellite-tools-6.9-for-rhel-8-x86_64-eus-source-rpms ~ https://cdn.redhat.com/content/eus/rhel8/$releasever/x86_64/sat-tools/6.9/source/SRPMS
           3: rhel-atomic-7-cdk-3.0-beta-source-rpms ~ https://cdn.redhat.com/content/beta/rhel/atomic/7/$basearch/cdk/3.0/source/SRPMS

To show partitions on the server or system:

# inxi -p

Partition: ID-1: / size: 12.2 GiB used: 4.75 GiB (38.9%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-0 
           ID-2: /boot size: 1014 MiB used: 307.5 MiB (30.3%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/sda1 
           ID-3: [SWAP] raw-size: 820 MiB size: N/A (hidden?) used: N/A (hidden?) fs: swap dev: /dev/rhel-swap 
           ID-4: swap-1 size: 820 MiB used: 75.8 MiB (9.2%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-1 

To display memory data with all available slots:

# inxi -m

Memory:    RAM: total: 810.7 MiB used: 373 MiB (46.0%) 
           RAM Report: message: No RAM data was found.

To show a short report of memory data:

# inxi --memory-short

Memory:    RAM: total: 810.7 MiB used: 373 MiB (46.0%) 
           RAM Report: message: No RAM data was found. 

To show processes including CPU and RAM usage:

# inxi -t

Processes: CPU top: 5 of 118 
           1: cpu: 0.2% command: pmdaproc pid: 27122 
           2: cpu: 0.2% command: pmdalinux pid: 27125 
           3: cpu: 0.1% command: pmdaopenmetrics.python started by: python3 pid: 27132 
           4: cpu: 0.0% command: systemd pid: 1 
           5: cpu: 0.0% command: [kthreadd] pid: 2 
           System RAM: total: 810.7 MiB used: 373 MiB (46.0%) 
           Memory top: 5 of 118 
           1: mem: 27.2 MiB (3.3%) command: platform-python pid: 35915 
           2: mem: 18.5 MiB (2.2%) command: pmdaopenmetrics.python started by: python3 pid: 27132 
           3: mem: 10.5 MiB (1.2%) command: sssd_nss pid: 78029 
           4: mem: 10.1 MiB (1.2%) command: pmlogger pid: 124136 
           5: mem: 10.1 MiB (1.2%) command: sssd_be pid: 7802

If you want to show the top 10 processes consuming CPU and RAM, run:

# inxi -t cm10

< Lengthy output omitted >

The inxi command also supports various verbosity levels (0-8), which can also be used to query data. For example:

# inxi -v 4  - will show Partition(-P) and Disk info(-D).
# inxi -v 3  - will show Advanced CPU (-C), battery (-B), and network (-n)

Unavailable resources

Now, let's look at a situation when a specific resource is not available and inxi is run against it. For example, I have no USB device connected to my server. Let's query for USB devices on the system by using the -J option:

# inxi -J
USB:       Message: No USB data was found. Server?

This means no USB is connected. On a server where USB is available, the output looks like this:

# inxi -J
USB:       Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 12 rev: 1.1

Hopefully, these examples are helpful. For more details and the available options, try:

# inxi -h

[ Free online course: Red Hat Enterprise Linux technical overview. ] 

And, here's a bonus, non-system information command:

# inxi -w

Weather:   Report: temperature: 27.8 C (82 F) conditions: Heavy rain 
           Locale: current time: Thu 10 Jun 2021 01:50:15 PM EDT (America/New_York) Source: WeatherBit.io 

Wrap up

It can be a challenge for sysadmins to gather information about their servers, but the inxi utility helps to simplify that process. Install it on your RHEL server and explore all the great information it provides. Now you can gather CPU, memory, storage, networking, and even weather data with one simple command.