Provided by: pcp_5.3.6-1build1_amd64 bug

NAME

       pmlogger_check, pmlogger_daily - administration of Performance Co-Pilot archive log files

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check [-CNPpqsTV?]  [-c control] [-l logfile]
       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily  [-EfKMNoprRV?]   [-c  control]  [-k time] [-l logfile] [-m
       addresses] [-s size] [-t want] [-x time] [-X program] [-Y regex]

DESCRIPTION

       These shell scripts and associated control files may be used to create a customized regime
       of  administration  and  management for Performance Co-Pilot (see PCPIntro(1)) archive log
       files.

       pmlogger_check may be run at any time of the day and is intended to check that  a  desired
       set  of  pmlogger(1)  processes  are  running.   If not, it (re-)starts any missing logger
       processes.

       pmlogger_daily is intended to be run once per day, preferably in  the  early  morning,  as
       soon  after midnight as practicable.  Its task is to aggregate, rotate and perform general
       housekeeping one or more sets of PCP archives.

       To accommodate the evolution of PMDAs and  changes  in  production  logging  environments,
       pmlogger_daily  is  integrated  with  pmlogrewrite(1)  to  allow  optional  and  automatic
       rewriting of archives before merging.  If there are global rewriting rules to  be  applied
       across  all  archives  mentioned  in  the  control  file(s),  then  create  the  directory
       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite and  place  any  pmlogrewrite(1)  rewriting  rules  in  this
       directory.   For rewriting rules that are specific to only one family of archives, use the
       directory name from the control file(s) - i.e. the fourth field - and create a file, or  a
       directory,  or  a  symbolic  link  named  pmlogrewrite within this directory and place the
       required rewriting rule(s) in the pmlogrewrite file or in files  within  the  pmlogrewrite
       subdirectory.   pmlogger_daily  will  choose rewriting rules from the archive directory if
       they exist, else rewriting rules  from  $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite  if  that  directory
       exists, else no rewriting is attempted.

       As  an  alternate  mechanism,  if  the file $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/.NeedRewrite exists when
       pmlogger_daily starts then this is treated the same as specifying -R on the  command  line
       and  $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/.NeedRewrite  will  be  removed once all the rewriting has been
       done.

OPTIONS

       -c control, --control=control
            Both pmlogger_check and pmlogger_daily are controlled by PCP logger  control  file(s)
            that  specifies  the  pmlogger  instances to be managed.  The default control file is
            $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH, but an alternate may be specified using the -c option.  If
            the  directory  $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH.d (or control.d from the -c option) exists,
            then the contents of any additional control files therein will  be  appended  to  the
            main control file (which must exist).

       -C   This  option  causes  pmlogger_check to query the system service runlevel information
            for pmlogger, and use that to determine whether to start processes or not.

       -E, --expunge
            This option causes pmlogger_daily to pass the -E flag to pmlogger_merge in  order  to
            expunge metrics with metadata inconsistencies and continue rather than fail.  This is
            intended for automated daily log rotation where it is highly desirable for unattended
            daily  archive  merging,  rewriting and compression to succeed.  For further details,
            see pmlogger_merge(1) and description for the -x flag in pmlogextract(1).

       -f, --force
            This option causes pmlogger_daily to forces action.  Using this option in  production
            is not recommended.

       -k time, --discard=time
            After  some  period, old PCP archives are discarded.  time is a time specification in
            the syntax of find-filter(1), so  DD[:HH[:MM]].   The  optional  HH  (hours)  and  MM
            (minutes)  parts  are  0 if not specified.  By default the time is 14:0:0 or 14 days,
            but may be changed using this option.

            Some special values are recognized for the time, namely 0 to keep no archives  beyond
            the  the ones being currently written by pmlogger(1), and forever or never to prevent
            any archives being discarded.

            The time can also be set  using  the  $PCP_CULLAFTER  variable,  set  in  either  the
            environment  or  in  a control file.  If both $PCP_CULLAFTER and -k specify different
            values for time then the environment variable value is used and a warning is  issued.
            I.e.,  if  $PCP_CULLAFTER  is  set  in the control file, it overrides -k given on the
            command line.

            Note that the semantics of time are that  it  is  measured  from  the  time  of  last
            modification  of each archive, and not from the original archive creation date.  This
            has subtle implications for compression (see below) - the compression process results
            in  the  creation  of  new  archive files which have new modification times.  In this
            case, the time period (re)starts from the time of compression.

       -K   When this option is specified for pmlogger_daily then only the compression tasks  are
            attempted,  so  no pmlogger rotation, no culling, no rewriting, etc.  When -K is used
            and a period of 0 is in effect (from -x on the command line or $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER  in
            the  environment  or  via  the  control file) this is intended for environments where
            compression of archives is desired before the scheduled daily processing happens.  To
            achieve  this,  once  pmlogger_check  has  completed  regular  processing,  it  calls
            pmlogger_daily with just the -K option.  Provided  $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER  is  set  to  0
            along  with  any other required compression options to match the scheduled invocation
            of pmlogger_daily, then  this  will  compress  all  volumes  except  the  ones  being
            currently  written  by  pmlogger(1).  If $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER is set to a value greater
            than zero, then manually running pmlogger_daily with the -x option  may  be  used  to
            compress volumes that are younger than the $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER time.  This may be used
            to reclaim filesystem space by compressing  volumes  earlier  than  they  would  have
            otherwise  been  compressed.  Note that since the default value of $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER
            is 0 days, the -x option has no effect unless the control file has  been  edited  and
            $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER has been set to a value greater than 0.

       -l file, --logfile=file
            In  order  to ensure that mail is not unintentionally sent when these scripts are run
            from cron(8) diagnostics are always sent to log files.   By  default,  this  file  is
            $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/pmlogger_check.log  or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/pmlogger_daily.log
            but this can be changed using the -l option.  If this log file  already  exists  when
            the  script  starts, it will be renamed with a .prev suffix (overwriting any log file
            saved earlier) before diagnostics are generated to the  log  file.   The  -l  and  -t
            options cannot be used together.

       -m addresses, --mail=addresses
            Use  of  this  option causes pmlogger_daily to construct a summary of the ``notices''
            file entries which were generated in the last 24 hours, and e-mail  that  summary  to
            the  set  of  space-separated  addresses.   This  daily summary is stored in the file
            $PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES.daily, which will be empty when no new ``notices'' entries  were
            made in the previous 24 hour period.

       -M   This  option  may  be used to disable archive merging (or renaming) and rewriting (-M
            implies -r).  This is most useful in cases where the archives are being incrementally
            copied  to a remote repository, e.g. using rsync(1).  Merging, renaming and rewriting
            all risk an increase  in  the  synchronization  load,  especially  immediately  after
            pmlogger_daily has run, so -M may be useful in these cases.

       -N, --showme
            This  option  enables  a ``show me'' mode, where the programs actions are echoed, but
            not executed, in the style of ``make -n''.  Using -N in conjunction with -V maximizes
            the diagnostic capabilities for debugging.

       -o   By  default  all  possible  archives  will be merged.  This option reinstates the old
            behaviour in which only yesterday's archives will be considered as merge  candidates.
            In  the special case where only a single input archive needs to be merged, pmlogmv(1)
            is used to rename the archive, otherwise pmlogger_merge(1) is used to  merge  all  of
            the  archives  for  a  single  host  and  a single day into a new PCP archive and the
            individual archives are removed.

       -p, --skip-primary
            If this option is specified for pmlogger_check then any line from the  control  files
            for  the  primary pmlogger will be ignored.  This option is intended for environments
            where some system daemon, like systemd(1), is responsible for controlling  (starting,
            stopping, restarting, etc.) the primary pmlogger.

       -P, --only-primary
            If  this option is specified for pmlogger_check then only the primary logger entry in
            the control files will be processed.  This is the logical opposite of the  -p  option
            described  above  and  is  intended for use by RC scripts that start only the primary
            logger, such as the pmlogger.service unit.  The -p and -P options  to  pmlogger_check
            are mutually exclusive.

       -p   If  this  option  is  specified  for  pmlogger_daily  then  the  status  of the daily
            processing is polled and if  the  daily  pmlogger(1)  rotation,  culling,  rewriting,
            compressing,  etc.   has not been done in the last 24 hours then it is done now.  The
            intent is to have pmlogger_daily called regularly with the -p option (at 30 mins past
            the  hour,  every  hour  in  the  default  cron(8) set up) to ensure daily processing
            happens as soon as possible if it was missed at the regularly scheduled  time  (which
            is  00:10  by  default), e.g. if the system was down or suspended at that time.  With
            this option pmlogger_daily simply exits if the previous day's processing has  already
            been  done.   Note  that  this  option is not used on platforms supporting systemd(1)
            because  the  pmlogger_daily.timer  service  unit  specifies  a  timer  setting  with
            Persistent=true.  The -K and -p options to pmlogger_daily are mutually exclusive.

       -q, --quick
            If  this  option  is specified for pmlogger_check then the script will ``quickstart''
            avoiding any optional processing like file compression.

       -r, --norewrite
            This command line option acts as an override and prevents all archive rewriting  with
            pmlogrewrite(1)   independent  of  the  presence  of  any  rewriting  rule  files  or
            directories.

       -R, --rewriteall
            Sometimes PMDA changes require all archives  to  be  rewritten,  not  just  the  ones
            involved  in  any  current merging.  This is required for example after a PCP upgrade
            where a new version of an existing PMDA has revised metadata.  The  -R  command  line
            forces  this  universal-style  of  rewriting.   The  -R  option  to pmlogger_daily is
            mutually exclusive with both the -r and -M options.

       -s size, --rotate=size
            If the PCP ``notices''  file  ($PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES)  is  larger  than  20480  bytes,
            pmlogger_daily  will  rename  the  file  with  a  ``.old''  suffix,  and  start a new
            ``notices'' file.  The rotate threshold may be changed from 20480 to size bytes using
            the -s option.

       -s, --stop
            Use  of  this  option provides the reverse pmlogger_check functionality, allowing the
            set of pmlogger processes to be cleanly shutdown.

       -t period
            To assist with debugging or diagnosing intermittent failures the  -t  option  may  be
            used.  This will turn on very verbose tracing (-VV) and capture the trace output in a
            file named $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/daily.datestamp.trace, where datestamp is  the  time
            pmlogger_daily  was  run  in  the  format  YYYYMMDD.HH.MM.   In  addition, the period
            argument will ensure that trace files created with -t will be kept  for  period  days
            and then discarded.

       -T, --terse
            This option to pmlogger_check produces less verbose output than the default.  This is
            most suitable for a pmlogger ``farm'' where many instances of pmlogger  are  expected
            to be running.

       -V, --verbose
            The output from the cron execution of the scripts may be extended using the -V option
            to the scripts which will enable verbose tracing of their activity.  By  default  the
            scripts  generate  no  output  unless some error or warning condition is encountered.
            Using -N in conjunction with -V maximizes the diagnostic capabilities for debugging.

       -x time, --compress-after=time
            Archive data files can optionally be compressed after some period  to  conserve  disk
            space.  This is particularly useful for large numbers of pmlogger processes under the
            control of pmlogger_check.

            time is a time specification in the syntax of find-filter(1), so  DD[:HH[:MM]].   The
            optional HH (hours) and MM (minutes) parts are 0 if not specified.

            Some  special  values  are  recognized for the time, namely 0 to apply compression as
            soon as possible, and forever or never to prevent any compression being done.

            If transparent_decompress is enabled when libpcp was built (can be checked  with  the
            pmconfig(1)  -L  option),  then  the  default  behaviour  is compression ``as soon as
            possible''.  Otherwise the default behaviour is to not compress files (which  matches
            the historical default behaviour in earlier PCP releases).

            The  time  can  also  be set using the $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER variable, set in either the
            environment or in  a  control  file.   If  both  $PCP_COMPRESSAFTER  and  -x  specify
            different  values  for time then the environment variable value is used and a warning
            is issued.  For important other detailed notes concerning volume compression, see the
            -K and -k options (above).

       -X program, --compressor=program
            This  option specifies the program to use for compression - by default this is xz(1).
            The environment variable $PCP_COMPRESS may be used as  an  alternative  mechanism  to
            define  program.  If both $PCP_COMPRESS and -X specify different compression programs
            then the environment variable value is used and a warning is issued.

       -Y regex, --regex=regex
            This option allows a regular expression to be specified causing files in the  set  of
            files  matched  for  compression to be omitted - this allows only the data file to be
            compressed, and also prevents the program from attempting to compress  it  more  than
            once.  The default regex is ".(index|Z|gz|bz2|zip|xz|lzma|lzo|lz4)$" - such files are
            filtered   using   the   -v   option   to   egrep(1).    The   environment   variable
            $PCP_COMPRESSREGEX  may be used as an alternative mechanism to define regex.  If both
            $PCP_COMPRESSREGEX and -Y specify different values for  regex  then  the  environment
            variable value is used and a warning is issued.

       -?, --help
            Display usage message and exit.

CONFIGURATION

       Warning:     The     $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH     file     and     files    within    the
       $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH.d directory must not be writable by any user other than root.

       The control file(s) should be customized according to the following rules that define  for
       the current version (1.1) of the control file format.

       1.  Lines beginning with a ``#'' are comments.  A special case is lines beginning ``#!#'';
           these are control lines for a pmlogger(1) that has been stopped using pmlogctl(1).
       2.  Lines beginning with a ``$'' are assumed to be assignments to environment variables in
           the  style  of  sh(1),  and all text following the ``$'' will be eval'ed by the script
           reading  the  control  file,  and  the  corresponding  variable  exported   into   the
           environment.   This  is  particularly  useful  to  set  and  export variables into the
           environment of the administrative scripts, e.g.
               $ PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=20
       3.  There must be a version line in the initial control file of the form:
               $ version=1.1
       4.  There should be one line in the control file(s) for  each  pmlogger  instance  of  the
           form:

               host y|n y|n directory args

       5.  Fields  within  a  line  of  the  control file(s) are usually separated by one or more
           spaces or tabs (although refer to the description of  the  directory  field  for  some
           important exceptions).
       6.  The  first field is the name of the host that is the source of the performance metrics
           for this pmlogger instance.
       7.  The second field indicates if this is a primary pmlogger  instance  (y)  or  not  (n).
           Since  the  primary  logger  must  run on the local host, and there may be at most one
           primary logger for a particular host, this field can be y for  at  most  one  pmlogger
           instance, in which case the host name must be the name of the local host.
       8.  The  third  field  indicates  if  this pmlogger instance needs to be started under the
           control of pmsocks(1) to connect to a pmcd through a firewall (y or n).
       9.  The fourth field is a  directory  name.   All  files  associated  with  this  pmlogger
           instance will be created in this directory, and this will be the current directory for
           the execution of any programs required in the maintenance of those archives.  A useful
           convention is that primary logger archives for the local host with hostname myhost are
           maintained in  the  directory  $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/myhost  (this  is  where  the  default
           pmlogger  start-up script in $PCP_RC_DIR/pcp will create the archives), while archives
           for the remote host mumble are maintained in $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/mumble.
       10. The directory field may contain embedded shell syntax that will be evaluated by  sh(1)
           to produce the real directory name to be used.  The allowed constructs are:
           • Any text (including white space) enclosed with $( and ).
           • Any text (including white space) enclosed with ` and ` (back quotes).
           • Any text (including white space) enclosed with " and " (double quotes).
           • Any word containing a $ (assumed to introduce an environment variable name).
       11. All  other  fields  are  interpreted  as  arguments to be passed to pmlogger(1).  Most
           typically this would be the -c option.

       The following sample control lines specify a primary logger on the local host (bozo),  and
       non-primary  loggers  to  collect  and  log  performance metrics from the hosts wobbly and
       boing.

       $version=1.1
       bozo   y  n  $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/bozo   -c config.default
       wobbly n  n  "/store/wobbly/$(date +%Y)"  -c ./wobbly.config
       boing  n  n  $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/boing  -c ./pmlogger.config

       Typical crontab(5) entries for periodic execution of pmlogger_daily and pmlogger_check are
       given  in  $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab  (unless  installed by default in /etc/cron.d
       already) and shown below.

       # daily processing of archive logs
       14      0       *       *       *       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily
       # every 30 minutes, check pmlogger instances are running
       25,55   *       *       *       *       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check

       When using systemd(1) on Linux, no crontab entries  are  needed  as  the  timer  mechanism
       provided by systemd is used instead.

FILES

       $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH
            the  PCP  logger  control  file.   For  a  new  installation  this  file  contains no
            pmlogger(1)   control   lines   (the   real   control   files   are   all   in    the
            $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH.d  directory),  but this file is still processed to support
            any legacy configurations therein from earlier PCP releases.
            Warning: this file must not be writable by any user other than root.

       $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH.d
            optional directory containing additional PCP logger control files, typically one  per
            host
            Warning: the files herein must not be writable by any user other than root.

       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab
            sample crontab for automated script execution by $PCP_USER (or root).  Exists only if
            the platform does not support the /etc/cron.d mechanism.

       $PCP_VAR_DIR/config/pmlogger/config.default
            default pmlogger configuration file location for the local primary logger,  typically
            generated automatically by pmlogconf(1).

       $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/<hostname>
            default  location  for  archives  of  performance information collected from the host
            hostname

       $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/<hostname>/lock
            transient lock file to guarantee mutual exclusion during pmlogger administration  for
            the  host  hostname - if present, can be safely removed if neither pmlogger_daily nor
            pmlogger_check are running

       $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/<hostname>/Latest
            PCP archive  folio  created  by  mkaf(1)  for  the  most  recently  launched  archive
            containing performance metrics from the host hostname

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES
            PCP ``notices'' file used by pmie(1) and friends

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/pmlogger_check.log
            if  the  previous  execution  of pmlogger_check produced any output it is saved here.
            The normal case is no output in which case the file does not exist.

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/pmlogger_daily.log
            if the previous execution of pmlogger_daily produced any output  it  is  saved  here.
            The normal case is no output in which case the file does not exist.

       $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/<hostname>/SaveLogs
            if  this directory exists, then the log file from the -l argument of a newly launched
            pmlogger(1) for hostname will be linked into this directory with the name archive.log
            where  archive is the basename of the associated pmlogger(1) PCP archive files.  This
            allows the log file to be inspected at a later  time,  even  if  several  pmlogger(1)
            instances  for  hostname  have been launched in the interim.  Because the cron-driven
            PCP  archive  management  scripts  run  under  the   uid   of   the   user   ``pcp'',
            $PCP_ARCHIVE_DIR/hostname/SaveLogs typically needs to be owned by the user ``pcp''.

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/.NeedRewrite
            if  this  file  exists, then this is treated as equivalent to using -R on the command
            line and the file will be removed once all rewriting has been done.

PCP ENVIRONMENT

       Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the file and directory
       names used by PCP.  On each installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values
       for these variables.  The $PCP_CONF  variable  may  be  used  to  specify  an  alternative
       configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5).

       The  default  behaviour,  when  pmlogger(1)  configuration  comes from pmlogconf(1), is to
       regenerate the configuration file and check for changes whenever  pmlogger(1)  is  started
       from  pmlogger_check.   If  the  PMDA  configuration is stable, this is not necessary, and
       setting $PMLOGGER_CHECK_SKIP_LOGCONF to yes disables the regeneration and checking.

COMPATIBILITY ISSUES

       Earlier versions of pmlogger_daily used find(1) to locate files for compressing or culling
       and  the  -k  and  -x options took only integer values to mean ``days''.  The semantics of
       this was quite loose given that find(1) offers different precision  and  semantics  across
       platforms.

       The  current  implementation  of  pmlogger_daily  uses  find-filter(1) which provides high
       precision intervals and semantics that are relative to  the  time  of  execution  and  are
       consistent across platforms.

SEE ALSO

       egrep(1),  find-filter(1),  PCPIntro(1),  pmconfig(1), pmlc(1), pmlogconf(1), pmlogctl(1),
       pmlogger(1),  pmlogger_daily_report(1),  pmlogger_merge(1),  pmlogextract(1),  pmlogmv(1),
       pmlogrewrite(1), pmsocks(1), systemd(1), xz(1) and cron(8).