Desk
On this page
The desk installs nothing of the package: it receives the images that the server has already drawn. This is the second of two steps, and the reverse of the usual order, where a program is installed on the machine you work on. argus-fetch copies the charts from each declared server.
Declare the servers
The command reads ~/.config/argus/hosts.conf, one server per line, as <ssh alias>,<data directory>. The alias is a Host name of ~/.ssh/config, or a user@host address; the directory is ARGUS_DATA_DIR on that server, /srv/argus/ by default. Empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored.
mkdir -p ~/.config/argus
printf 'server.example.org,/srv/argus/\n' > ~/.config/argus/hosts.conf
Copy the images
argus-fetch
One SSH session per server is enough: the command copies the PNG files found under <directory>/<year>/images/ in that session, then closes it. The images land in ~/argus-backup/<ssh alias>/<year>/images/. Existing files on the desk are left alone, and no remote file is removed, so the command can run every day.
Two options change the target:
argus-fetch --only server.example.org
argus-fetch --dest ~/Documents/argus
One connection per host, no retry
An unreachable server is reported once; the remaining servers are still copied and the command exits with code 1. There is no second attempt, since a server that bans an address after a few failed logins would lock the desk out. Find the cause (key, alias, firewall, machine off), then run the command again yourself.
bash, ssh and rsync must be present on the desk, with a key that opens the session without asking for a password. The package places argus-fetch in /usr/bin/; a machine that is not Debian can take that one file from the repository.
Read a view that does not exist yet
The charts already drawn are on the desk. For another week or another month, draw it on the server, then fetch again:
ssh server.example.org
sudo argus-chart period --week 2026-W44
The next argus-fetch copies the new image with the others. The Charts page gives the windows and the three views.
What is copied
Each image is a PNG named <today>_argus_<view>_<window>.png, for example 2026-11-02_argus_period_week-2026-W44.png. The full procedure, the backup layout and the options are in docs/desk.md.