linux-mcp - My agent kept running terminal commands, so I built this

#linux #mcp #devops #go

linux-mcp

I was debugging a config issue on my server and chatting with OpenCode to help. Every time it needed to check system state - memory usage, disk space, running processes - it would chain together a long pipeline of terminal commands. ps aux | grep ... | awk ..., df -h | grep ..., you know the drill.

It would work, fail, try a different pipeline, fail again, retry. What should have been a one-line answer turned into ten minutes of trial and error.

That's when it clicked: the agent doesn't need better shell scripting. It needs a tool that already knows what to ask and how to parse the answer.

So I built linux-mcp - an MCP server that gives AI agents direct, structured access to Linux system data. 40+ tools covering CPU, memory, disk, network, processes, Docker, systemd, GPU, security, and more.

What it does

Instead of the agent running free -m | grep Mem | awk '{print $3/$2 * 100}', it calls get_memory_info and gets this back:

{
  "total_mb": 16384,
  "used_mb": 12288,
  "percent": 75.0,
  "swap_total_mb": 4096,
  "swap_used_mb": 1024
}

No parsing, no retries, no "oops, wrong flag."

Tool	What it returns
`get_system_snapshot`	Everything in one call
`get_cpu_info`	Usage, model, frequency, cores
`get_memory_info`	RAM and swap stats
`get_disk_info`	Per-partition usage, inodes, mount options
`get_network_connections`	TCP/UDP connections with process info
`get_docker_container_stats`	Live CPU/memory/network per container
`get_gpu_info`	NVIDIA/AMD/Intel - usage, temp, power
`get_failed_logins`	Brute force detection
`get_man_page`	Any man page, any command
`get_listening_ports`	Ports and their processes

Full list: 40+ tools + MCP resources.

Setup

{
  "mcp": {
    "linux-mcp": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["/path/to/linux-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Mohabdo21/linux-mcp.git
cd linux-mcp
make build

Pre-built binary

curl -LO https://github.com/Mohabdo21/linux-mcp/releases/latest/download/linux-mcp
chmod +x linux-mcp

Static binary available (no libc dependency).

Design

Written in Go using the official MCP Go SDK
STDIO transport - zero networking config
Per-tool configurable timeouts
SIGHUP config reload - no restart needed
Docker tools optional - only activate if Docker is installed

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