Ubuntu Manpage: pmprobe - lightweight probe for performance metrics

NAME

       pmprobe - lightweight probe for performance metrics

SYNOPSIS

       pmprobe [-dfFiILvVz?]  [-a archive] [-b batchsize] [--container=name] [--derived=file] [-h
       hostname] [-K spec] [-n pmnsfile] [-O time] [-Z timezone] [metricname ...]

DESCRIPTION

pmprobe determines the availability of performance metrics exported through the facilities
of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).

The metrics of interest are named in the metricname arguments. If metricname is a non-
leaf node in the Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS(5)), then pmprobe will recursively
descend the PMNS and report on all leaf nodes. If no metricname argument is given, the
root of the namespace is used.

This recursive expansion of the PMNS can be inhibited by the -F (go faster) option, which
reduces the number of roundtrips to pmcd(1) when the metricname arguments are known to be
leaf nodes ahead of time.

The output format is spartan and intended for use in wrapper scripts creating
configuration files for other PCP tools. By default, there is one line of output per
metric, with the metric name followed by a count of the number of available values. Error
conditions are encoded as a negative value count (as per the PMAPI(3) protocols, but may
be decoded using pmerr(1)) and followed by a textual description of the error.

Unless directed to another host by the -h option, pmprobe will contact the Performance
Metrics Collector Daemon (PMCD) on the local host.

The -a option causes pmprobe to use the specified set of archives rather than connecting
to a PMCD.

The -L option causes pmprobe to use a local context to collect metrics from PMDAs on the
local host without PMCD. Only some metrics are available in this mode.

The -a, -h and -L options are mutually exclusive.

OPTIONS

The available command line options are:

-a archive, --archive=archive
Performance metric values are retrieved from the set of Performance Co-Pilot (PCP)
archive log files identified by the archive argument, which is a comma-separated list
of names, each of which may be the base name of an archive or the name of a directory
containing one or more archives.

-b, --batch
This option may be used to define the maximum number of metrics to be fetched in a
single request for the -v option and any pmLookupName(3) request that pmprobe calls
with a list of leaf metric names. The default value for batchsize is 128. This
option is useful to avoid limitations on PDU request sizes and also to stagger
fetches, which may otherwise timeout if pmcd(1) or a PMDA is slow to respond,
particularly if a large number of metrics are probed.

--container=container
Specify an individual container to be queried.

-d, --version
Display version number and exit.

--derived=dmfile
The dmfile argument specifies a file that contains derived metric definitions in the
format described for pmLoadDerivedConfig(3). This option provides a way to load
derived metric definitions that is an alternative to the more generic use of the
PCP_DERIVED_CONFIG environment variable as described in PCPIntro(1). Using the
--derived option and the PCP_DERIVED_CONFIG environment variable to specify the same
configuration is a bad idea, so choose one or the other method.

-f, --force
When used with -i or -I the set of instances reported will be all of those known at
the source of the performance data. By default the set of reported instances are
those for which values are currently available, which may be smaller than the set
reported with -f.

-F, --faster
Assume given metric names are PMNS leaf nodes.

-h host, --host=host
Connect to pmcd(1) on host, rather than on the default localhost.

-i, --internal
Report the internal identifiers for each instance. The values are in decimal and
prefixed by ``?''. As a special case, the literal string PM_IN_NULL is reported for
singular metrics.

-I, --external
Report the external identifiers for each instance. The literal string PM_IN_NULL is
reported for singular metrics.

-K spec, --spec-local=spec
When using the -L/ option to fetch metrics from a local context, this option controls
the DSO PMDAs that should be made accessible. The spec argument conforms to the
syntax described in pmSpecLocalPMDA(3). More than one -K option may be used.

-L, --local-PMDA
Use a local context to collect metrics from DSO PMDAs on the local host without PMCD.
See also -K.

-n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
Normally pmprobe operates on the distributed Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS),
however, if the -n option is specified an alternative local PMNS file is loaded from
the file pmnsfile.

-O time, --origin=time
When used in conjunction with an archive source of metrics and the options -f/, the
time argument defines a time origin at which the metrics should be fetched from the
set of archives. Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of this option, and
the syntax for the time argument.

-v, --values
Report the value for each instance, as per the formatting rules of pmPrintValue(3).
When fetching from a set of archives, only those instances present in the first
archive record for a metric will be displayed; see also the -O option. The -v option
is mutually exclusive with either the -I or -i options.

-V, --verbose
This option provides a cryptic summary of the number of messages sent and received
across the PMAPI interface.

-z, --hostzone
Change the reporting timezone to the local timezone at the host that is the source of
the performance metrics, as identified via either the -h or -a options.

-Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
By default, pmprobe reports the time of day according to the local timezone on the
system where pmprobe is run. The -Z option changes the timezone to timezone in the
format of the environment variable TZ as described in environ(7).

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

EXAMPLES

       $ pmprobe disk.dev
       disk.dev.read 2
       disk.dev.write 2
       disk.dev.total 2
       disk.dev.blkread 2
       disk.dev.blkwrite 2
       disk.dev.blktotal 2
       disk.dev.active 2
       disk.dev.response 2

       $ pmprobe -I disk.dev.read disk.dev.write disk.all.total
       disk.dev.read 2 "sda" "sdb"
       disk.dev.write 2 "sda" "sdb"
       disk.all.total 1 PM_IN_NULL

       $ pmprobe -v pmcd.numagents pmcd.version pmcd.control.timeout
       pmcd.numagents 1 9
       pmcd.version 1 "5.0.0"
       pmcd.control.timeout 1 5

       $ pmprobe -v disk.dev.total disk.all.total
       disk.dev.total -1012 Unknown metric name
       disk.all.total 1 4992466

FILES

       $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
            default PMNS specification files

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).

       For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see pmGetOptions(3).