NAME

       pmdatrace - application-level transaction performance metrics domain agent

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace/pmdatrace  [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-A access] [-I port] [-M username] [-N buckets]
       [-T period] [-U units]

DESCRIPTION

       pmdatrace is a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which exports transaction performance metrics from
       application processes which use the pcp_trace library described in pmdatrace(3).

       A brief description of the pmdatrace command line options follows:

       -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 trace.log is written in the current
            directory of pmcd(1) when pmdatrace 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.

       -A   Host-based  access  control  for  pmdatrace.   access must be either an allow or deny specification,
            using  either  allow:hostspec:maxconns  or  disallow:hostspec,  where  `allow'  and  `disallow'  are
            keywords,  `hostspec'  is  a  host  specification  conforming to the format used by both pmcd(1) and
            pmlogger(1), and `maxconns' is the maximum number of connections allowed from  a  given  `hostspec'.
            Using  a  maximum  connections  of  zero  specifies  an  unlimited  number  of  connections  for the
            accompanying `hostspec'.

       -I   Communicate with pcp_trace clients via the given Internet port.  This can alternatively be specified
            by setting $PCP_TRACE_PORT in the environment to some valid  port  number  (use  of  the  -I  option
            overrides this).  The default port number is 4323.

       -T   period defines the aggregation period used to compute the recent averages and extrema.  Specified as
            a  time  interval  using the syntax described in PCPIntro(1) for the common -t PCP argument, e.g. 30
            seconds or 1 min.  The default is 60 seconds.

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

       -N   Internally, the aggregation period is divided into bucket divisions,  and  the  rolling  average  is
            recomputed  every  period/bucket  seconds.  For example, the defaults correspond to -T 60 and -N 12,
            which means the average is recomputed every five seconds for a period covering the prior 60 seconds.

       -U   This option allows the dimension and scale associated  with  the  observation  value  metric  to  be
            configured.  units is a comma-separated string of six integer values, which are the space dimension,
            time  dimension,  count  dimension,  space  scale,  time  scale, and count scale, respectively.  The
            default dimension and scale is ``none'', which is equivalent to presenting  ``0,0,0,0,0,0''  as  the
            argument  to  -U.   The  units  associated with a metric are most easily viewed using the -d (metric
            description) option to pminfo(1).  The Install script described  below  steps  through  this  option
            quite  explicitly,  so  it  is recommended that the Install script be used for building up the units
            specification.

       Essentially, the exported metrics provide statistics on the time for completion of each transaction,  and
       an average count of transactions completed and watch points passed over a given time period.

INSTALLATION

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

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace
            # ./Install

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

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace
            # ./Remove

       pmdatrace 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 pmdatrace
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace/help
                 default help text file for the trace metrics
       $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/trace/*
                 example programs which use the pcp_trace library
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace/Install
                 installation script for the pmdatrace agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/trace/Remove
                 undo installation script for pmdatrace
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/trace.log
                 default log file for error messages and other information from pmdatrace

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), pmtrace(1), PMAPI(3) and pmdatrace(3).

Performance Co-Pilot                                   PCP                                          PMDATRACE(1)