Ubuntu Manpage: colplot - plots collectl data using gnuplot

NAME

       colplot - plots collectl data using gnuplot

SYNOPSIS

       colplot -plot plots [-switches]

DESCRIPTIONS

       Generate  the  plots  selected  by  PLOT(s)  on  either  the terminal, a file or delivered as email.  The
       switches control the files to plot, the timeframes, formats and destinations.  In the case of a web based
       display,  you  can  run in `live` mode which will provide for periodic screen refreshes for viewing real-
       time data.  See the web-based help and FAQ for more detail.

PLOTS

       The plots themselves are selected from the standard list (see -showplots) with -plot.

       -plot
              List one or more plot names either separated with commas and no  whitespace  or  if  you  want  to
              include whitespace be sure to enclose the string in quotes.

SWITCHES

The remainder of the switches which are all optional fall into several categories, the first being those
that select the files and timeframes to plot and are as follow:

-dir
Look in this directory for plot files rather than the one pointed to by PlotDir in colplot.conf.
A plot file is one with a known extension and a properly formatted name. Any files that fail
either of these tests will be ignored.

-contains string1 [string2...]
This field consists of one or more strings separated by commas or whitespace (if whitespace the
entire string must be quoted). Each selected plot file has its name compared to each string.
Unless -any is specified, each string must appear somewhere in that file name for it to continue
to be selected.

As a special case, if there is a string containing a [, it is assumed to be in pdsh format, a
compact format for specifying multiple hostnames, eg xyz[1-5,10] specifies 6 hosts whose names all
begin with xyz and are followed by one of 6 values. In this case, only files with hostnames
exactly matching these names will be selected.

-all
If specified all strings specified by -contains must match for a file to be seleceted for
plotting.

-date from[-thru]
The starting and ending date between which files are selected for plotting. The dates must be in
yyyymmdd format.

-lastmins minutes
Once all the files matching the selection criteria are discovered, use the more recent file access
time to determine the ending time for plotting data. Note, if you've copied the file from
elsewhere and didn't preserve the last access time in the newly created files this will produce
unexpected results.

-time from[-thru]
The starting and ending time between which data is plotted. The times must be in hh:mm OR
hh:mm:ss format. The hour portion may be 1 or 2 digits.

The next set of switches control which plots are actually displayed

-filters string1 [string2...]
These only apply to detail plots. They select which devices to produce plots for. Invalid or
unknown devics are ignored. In other words, if one selects "-filters eth xyz d1" and requests
network plots, only ethernet devices will be displayed. Since 'xyz' is an invalid selection
string it is ignored. Since there are no network devices with 'd1' in their names, it too will be
ignored. If one choses network and disk plots, ethernet devices as well as any disk names with a
'd1' in them will be displayed.

-type type
By default, plots are geneated using solid lines. However, one can request a different format be
used including points or stacked line or stacked points.

-unique
If one generates multiple unique plot files per day via the -ou switch in collectl, those files
will be ignored by colplot. This switch, currently only available via the CLI will cause those
files to be selected and displayed in the same plot.

The next set of switches deal with plot formatting, typically only used under unusual circumstances since
the default formats meet most needs:

-adjust
Colplot uses a default height for the vertical axis which can be overridden via -height. However
sometimes a plot is not high enough for all the labels to fit in the legend. This switch will
keep the user specified height for all plots in which the legend fits as a single column but
increase the heights of those that aren't high enough.

-filetype type
This switch must be used in conjunction with selecting a destination other than the terminal,
specifically email or directory. One can use it to change the default from a PDF file to either a
PNG file for each plot or TTY to send PNG output for one plot to STDOUT.

-height number
This controls the vertical hight of a plot. This width also includes the xaxis and you can
therefore increase the room taken by a single plot by choosing -noxaxis.

-nolegend number
This removes the legend from the plotting area, causing the plot to become physically wider.

-noxaxis
This removed the xaxis from the plotting area, causing the plot to become physically taller.

-thick number
For some people the thickness of the lines in a plot may be too thin to clearly see the different
color variations of the lines. Versions of gnuplot >= 4.2 support wider lines and therefore so
does colplot. If using scatter plots, a different plotting symbol is actually used. Values of 2
or 3 are usually sufficient.

-width number
This switch controls the width of a plot where 1 is the size of a printable page. If set to more
than 1 and either -file or -mail is chosen it will be forced to 1. By setting this number to less
than 1, it may be possible to fit more than one plot on a page or screen. As this width also
includes the legend, you can further reduce the plot size by choosing -nolegend.

-xtics n
This causes a tic mark to be drawn on the xaxis every n seconds. It usually doesn't make sense
unless you've chosen a fairly narrow timeframe in which to generate a plot.

-ylog
Make the y-axis logrithmic.

This set of switches deal with the plot destination when it is NOT the terminal window:

-email address
Linux only. Address to send plot file(s) to. The only syntax check is for an '@' to appear
somewhere in the address string.

-filedir directory
The name of directory into which the plot file(s) will be placed. The directory must exist.

-href
Print the hrefs that would be used if run from a browser.

-incctl
Really only intended for users familiar with gnuplot, this is the control file used to generate
the plots. It allows someone to manually edit the file to change the plot appearance and/or
labels by rerunning gnuplot using its settings.

-pagbrk
Instead of generating a page break in a pdf file whenever a page fills, this flag will cause a
page break whenever the hostname changes.

-subject subject
Use this subject in email rather than the default.

And finally for completeness there are several types of help:

-help
Standard help.

-showparams
This is really a debugging aid, intended for developers and/or people building custom plot
definitions. When specified, the plotting parameters for each selected plot will be shown. Of
particular value is the actual column number for each data element in each selected file.

-showplots
List the names of all the standard plots available for use with the -plots switch.

-version
Show both the versions of both colplot as well as gnuplot.

AUTHOR