Ubuntu Manpage: pmdaproc - process performance metrics domain agent (PMDA)

NAME

       pmdaproc - process performance metrics domain agent (PMDA)

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/pmdaproc [-AL] [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-r cgroup] [-U username]

DESCRIPTION

pmdaproc is a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which extracts performance metrics describing the
state of the individual processes running on a Linux system.

The proc PMDA exports metrics that measure the memory, processor and other resource use of each process,
as well as summary information collated across all of the running processes. The PMDA uses credentials
passed from the PMAPI(3) monitoring tool identifying the user requesting the information, to ensure that
only values the user is allowed to access are returned by the PMDA. This involves the PMDA temporarily
changing its effective user and group identifiers for the duration of requests for instances and values.
In other words, system calls to extract information are performed as the user originating the request and
not as a privileged user. The mechanisms available for transfer of user credentials are described
further in the PCPIntro(1) page.

A brief description of the pmdaproc command line options follows:

-A Disables use of the credentials provided by PMAPI client tools, and simply runs everything under the
"root" account. Only enable this option if you understand the risks involved, and are sure that all
remote accesses will be from benevolent users. If enabled, unauthenticated remote PMAPI clients
will be able to access potentially sensitive performance metric values which an unauthenticated
PMAPI client usually would not be able to. Refer to CVE-2012-3419 for additional details.

-L Changes the per-process instance domain used by most pmdaproc metrics to include threads as well.

-d It is absolutely crucial that the performance metrics domain number specified here is unique and
consistent. That is, domain should be different for every PMDA on the one host, and the same domain
number should be used for the same PMDA on all hosts.

-l Location of the log file. By default, a log file named proc.log is written in the current directory
of pmcd(1) when pmdaproc is started, i.e. $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd. If the log file cannot be created or
is not writable, output is written to the standard error instead.

-r Restrict the set of processes exported in the per-process instance domain to only those processes
that are contained by the specified cgroup resource container. This option provides an optional
finer granularity to the monitoring, and can also be used to reduce the resources consumed by
pmdaproc during requests for instances and values.

-U User account under which to run the agent. The default is the privileged "root" account, with
seteuid (2) and setegid (2) switching for accessing most information.

HOTPROC OVERVIEW

       The  pmdaproc  Performance  Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) includes an additional set of per-process metrics
       with an instance domain of processes restricted to an "interesting"  or  "hot"  set.   Unlike  the  stock
       metrics  exported  by  the  proc  PMDA, which have an instance domain equal to the current processes, hot
       metrics have an instance domain which is a subset of this.  This hotproc instance domain is determined by
       a configurable predicate evaluated over some refresh interval.

       As well as the equivalent per-process proc metrics, hotproc provides a cpuburn metric which specifies the
       CPU utilization of the process over the refresh interval, total metrics which indicate how  much  of  the
       available  CPU  time  the "interesting" processes account for, predicate metrics which show the values of
       the reserved variables (see below) that are being used in the hotproc predicate, and control metrics  for
       controlling the agent.

HOTPROC CONFIGURATION

       The  configuration  file  consists  of  one  predicate  used  to  determine if a process should be in the
       interesting set or not.

       An example configuration file may be found at $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/samplehotproc.conf

       This file with any modifications can be copied to $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/hotproc.conf in order to  configure
       the hot metrics. The pmstore(1) and pmStore(3) interfaces can be used as well (described below).

       The  predicate  is  described using the language specified below.  The symbols are based on those used by
       the C(1) and awk(1) languages.

       Boolean Connectives
              && (and), || (or), !  (not), () (precedence overriding)

       Number comparators
              < , <= , > , >= , == , !=

       String comparators
              == , !=

       String/Pattern comparators
              ~ (string matches pattern) , !~ (string does not match pattern)

       Reserved variables
              uid (user id; type integer) uname (user name; type string), gid (group  id;  type  integer)  gname
              (group  name; type string), fname (process file name; type string), psargs (process file name with
              args; type string),  cpuburn  (cpu  utilization;  type  float),  iodemand  (I/O  demand  -  Kbytes
              read/written  per  second;  type  float),  ctxswitch  (number of context switches per second; type
              float), syscalls (number of system calls per second; type float),  virtualsize  (virtual  size  in
              Kbytes;  type  float), residentsize (resident size in Kbytes; type float), iowait (blocked and raw
              io wait in secs/sec; type float), schedwait (time waiting in run queue in secs/sec; type float).

       Literal values
              1234 (positive integer), 0.35 (positive float), "foobar" (string; delimited by  "),  /[fF](o)+bar/
              (pattern; delimited by /), true (boolean), false (boolean)

       Comments
              #this is a comment (from # to the end of the line).

       Examples
                cpuburn > 0.2 # cpu utilization of more than 20%
                cpuburn > 0.2 && uname == "root"
                cpuburn > 0.2 && (uname == "root" || uname == "hot")
                psargs ~ /pmda/ && cpuburn > 0.4

       The  hotproc.predicate metrics may be used to see what the values of the reserved variables are that were
       used by the predicate at the last refresh.  They do not cover the reserved variables  which  are  already
       exported  elsewhere.  A  hotproc.predicate  metric  may  not  have a value if it is not referenced in the
       configuration predicate.

DYNAMIC CONFIGURATION

       The hot metrics can also be configured at runtime through the pmstore(1) interface (and, implicitly,  the
       pmStore(3) API)

       Examples
                pmstore hotproc.control.config 'fname == "mingetty"'
                pmstore hotproc.control.config 'uid == 0'

       To force the config file to be reloaded:
                pmstore hotproc.control.reload_config "1"

INSTALLATION

       The  proc  PMDA  is  installed  and  available  by default.  If you want to undo the installation, do the
       following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc
            # ./Remove

       If you want to establish access to the names, help text and values for the proc performance metrics  once
       more, after removal, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc
            # ./Install

       pmdaproc  is  launched  by pmcd(1) and should never be executed directly.  The Install and Remove scripts
       notify pmcd(1) when the agent is installed or removed.

FILES

       $PCP_PMCDCONF_PATH
                 command line options used to launch pmdaproc
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/help
                 default help text file for the proc metrics
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/Install
                 installation script for the pmdaproc agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/Remove
                 undo installation script for the pmdaproc agent
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/proc.log
                 default log file for error messages and other information from pmdaproc
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/samplehotproc.conf
                 simple sample hotproc configuration
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/hotproc.conf
                 default hotproc configuration file

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).