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.

-L Changes the per-process instance domain used by most procproc 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.

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 ENVIRONMENT