NAME

       pmdashping - "shell-ping" performance metrics domain agent

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/pmdashping  [-C]  [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-I interval] [-t timeout] [-U username]
       configfile

DESCRIPTION

       pmdashping is a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which exports quality  of  service  and  response
       time measurements for arbitrary commands as might be run from a shell such as sh(1).

       These measurements are intended to be used to quantify service quality and service availability for those
       services that are either mission critical or act as early indicators of adverse system performance.

       The sample configuration monitors simple shell commands  (exit  and  date(1)),  a  short  computationally
       intensive  task  using sum(1), a short C compilation, DNS lookup via nslookup(1), YP lookup via ypcat(1),
       bind/portmapper service using rpcbind(1), SMTP by connecting to telnet port  25  and  sending  an  ``expn
       root'' request, and NNTP by connecting to telnet port 119 and running a ``listgroup'' command.

       It  is  expected that other commands would follow the examples in the sample configuration file, and most
       deployments of the pmdashping PMDA are expected to use a customized configuration file.

       A brief description of the pmdashping command line options follows:

       -C   Parse configfile, reporting any errors and  exiting  with  non-zero  status  if  the  file  contains
            syntactical errors.

       -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 shping.log is written in the current
            directory of pmcd(1) when pmdashping 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.

       -I   Amount  of  time (in seconds) between subsequent executions of the list of commands provided via the
            configuration file configfile.  The default is 2 minutes.

       -t   Amount of time (in seconds) to wait before timing  out  awaiting  a  response  for  a  command  from
            configfile.  The default is 20 seconds.

       -U   User  account  under which to run the agent and all commands.  The default is the unprivileged "pcp"
            account in current versions of PCP, but in older versions the superuser account ("root") was used by
            default.

       The  required  configfile  specifies  ``tag'' and ``command'' pairs, each on a separate line.  All of the
       commands are run one after another, with the whole group rescheduled to be run once  per  interval.   For
       each  command  that  is  run,  pmdashping  records  information related to the success (or timeout), exit
       status, elapsed time and CPU time (system and user), and this information is exported by the  PMDA.   The
       tags  are  used to identify the individual commands amongst the values exported by the PMDA, and form the
       external instance domain identifiers for the pmdashping metrics which relate to each command.

INSTALLATION

       In order for a host to export the names, help text and values for the shping performance metrics, do  the
       following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping
            # ./Install

       The  set  of ``tag'' and ``command'' pairs may be specified from a default (sample) configuration file, a
       customized file or entered interactively as part of the Install script.

       If you want to undo the installation, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping
            # ./Remove

       pmdashping 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 pmdashping
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/help
                 default help text file for the shping metrics
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/sample.conf
                 example configuration file with a number of common commands
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/Install
                 installation script for the pmdashping agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/Remove
                 undo installation script for pmdashping
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/shping.log
                 default log file for error messages and other information from pmdashping

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).

SEE ALSO

       PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1) and pcp-shping(1).