Real-time hardware monitor TUI for Rockchip RK3588 SBCs.
Like htop, but for the GPU, NPU, VPU, RGA, DDR controller, and thermal zones of your Radxa Rock 5B+, Orange Pi 5, or any RK3588 board.
The RK3588 is one of the most capable ARM SoCs ever shipped to hobbyists: an 8‑core CPU (4× A76 + 4× A55), a Mali‑G610 MP4 GPU, a 6 TOPS 3‑core NPU, dedicated video encode/decode IP, and a 2D acceleration block. General‑purpose monitors don't see any of that. htop shows CPU and memory. btop adds a generic GPU bar. Neither can answer "is the VPU actually used?" or "is the NPU stuck at 100% idle?" or "is DDR controller load my real bottleneck?"
rkmon is purpose‑built for RK3588‑class boards. It reads the kernel's actual devfreq, mpp_service, rknpu, rkrga, and thermal_zone interfaces — the same nodes the Rockchip BSP uses internally — and renders them at sub‑two‑percent CPU usage at 1 Hz refresh.
- Full RK3588 accelerator coverage: per‑core CPU + Mali‑G610 GPU + RKNPU (per‑core when root) + Rockchip VPU (
mpp_service) + RGA 2D engine + DDR controller + 7 thermal zones. - Sub‑2% CPU at 1 Hz refresh on the rock5bp itself. Single static aarch64 binary, no Python, no Node, no shared‑library footprint.
- Responsive layout: collapses to 60 cols, expands to a two‑column wide layout at ≥150 cols. Body scrolls when content exceeds height; top/bottom border + footer stay pinned.
- Per‑section toggles: turn CPU/MEM/GPU/NPU/VPU/RGA panels on or off with a single keypress (
c/m/g/n/v/a). - Optional tiers: I/O (disks + network + thermal throttle), System (CMA, fan PWM, governor, PCIe links), and Kernel (context switches/sec, IRQ per‑CPU) — toggled with
i/s/k, auto‑shown when the terminal is tall enough. - Multi‑tab help: keybinds, metric provenance (every sysfs/proc path is documented), and copy‑paste stress‑test recipes (
yes/stress-ng/ffmpeg/glmark2/iperf3) per metric. - One‑shot mode (
--once) writes a single snapshot to stdout — perfect forcron, dashboards, or shipping to Prometheus via a wrapper. - Cleanly handles non‑root: stale NPU readings are flagged, sudo‑only metrics show a hint instead of lying.
# Install rkmon v0.3.0 for linux/arm64
VERSION=v0.3.1
curl -sSL "https://github.com/isac322/rkmon/releases/download/${VERSION}/rkmon_${VERSION#v}_linux_arm64.tar.gz" \
| tar -xz -C /tmp rkmon
sudo install -m 0755 /tmp/rkmon /usr/local/bin/rkmon
rkmon --versionReplace v0.3.0 with the latest tag from the Releases page. Each release also ships a checksums.txt you can verify with sha256sum -c.
git clone https://github.com/isac322/rkmon.git
cd rkmon
make build # cross‑compiles to build/rkmon (linux/arm64, static)
make deploy # scp + install to ~/.local/bin/rkmon on $TARGETBuild requirements: Go 1.26+. No CGO.
rkmon # 1s refresh, height-aware tier auto-show
rkmon --refresh=500ms # faster refresh
rkmon --tiers=all # force every panel on
rkmon --tiers=i,k # I/O + Kernel tiers only
rkmon --once # one snapshot to stdout, then exit
rkmon --no-color # plain output, layout preserved
sudo rkmon # unlock NPU per-core, VPU load%, RGA load%| Key | Action |
|---|---|
q ctrl+c esc |
Quit |
+ - |
Adjust refresh rate (±100 ms, clamped 200 ms–10 s) |
r |
Force redraw |
c m g n v a |
Toggle CPU / MEM / GPU / NPU / VPU / RGA panels |
i s k |
Toggle I/O / System / Kernel tiers (also 1 2 3) |
? |
Open multi-tab help (keybinds, metrics, stress tests) |
↑ ↓ j |
Scroll body one row |
pgup pgdn space |
Scroll body one page |
home end |
Jump to top / bottom |
Scope: general‑purpose terminal monitors on an RK3588 SBC. None of htop/btop/gotop/nvtop claim Rockchip‑specific support; the table just makes the resulting gap explicit.
| Feature | rkmon | htop | btop | gotop | nvtop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU per‑core | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Memory + SWAP | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Mali‑G610 GPU (RK3588) | yes | no | no | no | no |
| RKNPU 3‑core (RK3588) | yes | no | no | no | no |
Rockchip VPU mpp_service |
yes | no | no | no | no |
| RGA 2D accelerator | yes | no | no | no | no |
| DDR controller load | yes | no | no | no | no |
| All 7 RK3588 thermal zones | yes | no | partial | no | no |
| Devfreq‑driven frequencies | yes | no | no | no | partial |
| PCIe link speed/width | yes | no | no | no | no |
| Static aarch64 binary | yes (≈ 4 MB) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Sub‑2 % CPU at 1 Hz | yes | yes | varies | yes | yes |
htop/btop/gotop are excellent general‑purpose monitors — rkmon is what you reach for the moment you actually care which accelerator on your RK3588 is doing the work.
- Designed for and tested on: Radxa Rock 5B+ (RK3588), Debian 12, kernel 6.1.x rockchip BSP.
- Should work on any RK3588 / RK3588S board (Rock 5A/5B/5B+, Orange Pi 5/5B/5 Plus, NanoPi R6S/R6C, etc.) as long as the BSP exposes the standard sysfs nodes (
/sys/class/devfreq/{fb000000.gpu-mali,fdab0000.npu,dmc},/sys/kernel/debug/{rknpu,rkrga},/proc/mpp_service/). - Other Rockchip SoCs (RK3399, RK3568, etc.) are not actively tested; some panels will show "n/a" depending on which IP blocks the SoC has.
- Host OS: any glibc‑based Linux distribution on aarch64.
rkmondoes not run on macOS or x86.
Every panel reads from a public kernel interface. The full provenance is also available in‑app via the ? → Metrics tab.
| Panel | Source | Root required? |
|---|---|---|
| CPU per‑core | /proc/stat + /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq |
no |
| Memory / SWAP | /proc/meminfo |
no |
| GPU (Mali‑G610) | /sys/class/devfreq/fb000000.gpu-mali/{load,cur_freq} |
no |
| NPU aggregate | /sys/class/devfreq/fdab0000.npu/{load,cur_freq} |
no |
| NPU per‑core | /sys/kernel/debug/rknpu/load |
yes |
| DDR controller | /sys/class/devfreq/dmc/load |
no |
| VPU sessions | /proc/mpp_service/sessions-summary + task_count |
no |
| VPU load % | /proc/mpp_service/load (sets load_interval=1000 once) |
yes |
| RGA load % | /sys/kernel/debug/rkrga/load |
yes |
| Thermal zones | /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/{type,temp} |
no |
| Disk I/O | /proc/diskstats (whole disks only) |
no |
| Network | /proc/net/dev (physical interfaces only) |
no |
| Throttle | /sys/class/thermal/cooling_device*/{type,cur_state,max_state} |
no |
| CMA pool | /proc/meminfo (CmaTotal / CmaFree) |
no |
| Fan PWM / RPM | /sys/class/hwmon/*/{pwm1,fan1_input} |
no |
| CPU governor | /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy*/scaling_governor |
no |
| PCIe links | /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/{current_link_speed,current_link_width,class} |
no |
| Ctx switches / IRQ | /proc/stat (ctxt) + /proc/interrupts |
no |
Measured on a Radxa Rock 5B+ (RK3588, 8 cores) running rkmon under tmux against itself:
| Refresh | CPU usage |
|---|---|
| 0.5 s | ~3.0 % |
| 1.0 s | ~1.6 % |
| 2.0 s | ~1.0 % |
Resident memory settles at 7–9 MB.
rkmon is a single static binary (~4 MB) built with Bubble Tea + Lipgloss. The hot‑rendering path bypasses Lipgloss style allocation by precomputing raw ANSI prefixes — that's most of the 1.6 % CPU win.
cmd/rkmon/ CLI entry, flags, Bubble Tea program wiring
internal/collect/ Pure parsers (testable) + concrete sysfs/proc collector
internal/ui/ Layout, panels, scroll, styles, help tabs
Parser tests run against captured /proc and /sys fixtures from the actual rock5bp — no live host needed to iterate.
- Native RK3588S support testing on Rock 5C / Orange Pi 5
- Per‑process VPU/NPU attribution (open question: kernel does not expose this today)
- Persistent log mode (
--log=csv) for offline analysis - Prometheus exporter wrapper script
- Color theme overrides
Issues and PRs welcome. Please include:
- Your board model + kernel version (
uname -r) - A
rkmon --oncesnapshot for repro - For new metric panels: the sysfs/proc path you want surfaced
Standard Go project layout. make test vet lint should pass before sending a PR.
Built for RK3588. Designed for embedded Linux developers. Ships as one binary.