Ubuntu Manpage: pmlogger_check, pmlogger_daily, pmlogger_merge

NAME

       pmlogger_check,  pmlogger_daily,  pmlogger_merge  - administration of Performance Co-Pilot
       archive log files

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check [-CNsTV] [-c control]
       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily [-NorV] [-c control] [-k discard] [-m addresses] [-s  size]
       [-t want] [-x compress] [-X program] [-Y regex]
       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_merge [-fNV] [input-basename ... output-name]

DESCRIPTION

This series of shell scripts and associated control files may be used to create a
customized regime of administration and management for Performance Co-Pilot (see
PCPintro(1)) archive log files.

pmlogger_daily is intended to be run once per day, preferably in the early morning, as
soon after midnight as practicable. Its task is to aggregate and rotate one or more sets
of PCP archives. After some period, old PCP archives are discarded. This period is 14
days by default, but may be changed using the -k option. Two special values are recognized
for the period (discard), namely 0 to keep no archives beyond the current one, and forever
to prevent any archives being discarded.

Archive data files can optionally be compressed after some period (compress), to conserve
disk space. This is particularly useful for large numbers of pmlogger processes under the
control of pmlogger_check. The -x option specifies the number of days after which to
compress archive data files, and the -X option specifies the program to use for
compression - by default this is bzip2(1). Use of the -Y option allows a regular
expression to be specified causing files in the set of files matched for compression to be
omitted - this allows only the data file to be compressed, and also prevents the program
from attempting to compress it more than once. The default regex is
".meta$|.index$|.Z$|.gz$|.bz2|.zip$" - such files are filtered using the -v option to
egrep(1).

In addition, if the PCP ``notices'' file ($PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES) is larger than 20480
bytes, pmlogger_daily will rename the file with a ``.old'' suffix, and start a new
``notices'' file. The rotate threshold may be changed from 20480 to size bytes using the
-s option.

Use of the -m option causes pmlogger_daily to construct a summary of the ``notices'' file
entries which were generated in the last 24 hours, and e-mail that summary to the set of
space-separated addresses. This daily summary is stored in the file
$PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES.daily, which will be empty when no new ``notices'' entries were made
in the previous 24 hour period.

pmlogger_check may be run at any time, and is intended to check that the desired set of
pmlogger(1) processes are running, and if not to re-launch any failed loggers. Use of the
-s option provides the reverse functionality, allowing the set of pmlogger processes to be
cleanly shutdown. Use of the -C option queries the system service runlevel information
for pmlogger, and uses that to determine whether to start or stop processes.

pmlogger_merge is a wrapper script for pmlogmerge(1) that merges all of the archive logs
matching the input-basename arguments, and creates a new archive using output-name as the
base name for the physical files that constitute an archive log. The input-basename
arguments may contain meta characters in the style of sh(1). If specified, the -f option
causes all of the input files to be removed once the output archive has been created.

pmlogger_merge is used by pmlogger_daily.

To assist with debugging or diagnosing intermittent failures the -t option may be used.
This will turn on very verbose tracing (-VV) and capture the trace output in a file named
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/daily.datestamp.trace, where datestamp is the time pmlogger_daily
was run in the format YYYYMMDD.HH.MM. In addition, the want argument will ensure that
trace files created with -t will be kept for want days and then discarded.

Both pmlogger_daily and pmlogger_check are controlled by a PCP logger control file that
specifies the pmlogger instances to be managed. The default control file is
$PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH, but an alternate may be specified using the -c option.

The control file should be customized according to the following rules that define for the
current version (1.1) of the control file format.

1. Lines beginning with a ``#'' are comments.
2. Lines beginning with a ``$'' are assumed to be assignments to environment variables
in the style of sh(1), and all text following the ``$'' will be eval'ed by the
script reading the control file, and the corresponding variable exported into the
environment. This is particularly useful to set and export variables into the
environment of the administrative scripts, e.g.
$ PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=20
Warning: The $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH file must not be writable by any user other
than root.
3. There must be a version line of the form:
$ version=1.1
4. There should be one line in the control file for each pmlogger instance of the
form:

host y|n y|n directory args

5. Fields within a line of the control file are separated by one or more spaces or
tabs.
6. The first field is the name of the host that is the source of the performance
metrics for this pmlogger instance.
7. The second field indicates if this is a primary pmlogger instance (y) or not (n).
Since the primary logger must run on the local host, and there may be at most one
primary logger for a particular host, this field can be y for at most one pmlogger
instance, in which case the host name must be the name of the local host.
8. The third field indicates if this pmlogger instance needs to be started under the
control of pmsocks(1) to connect to a pmcd through a firewall (y or n).
9. The fourth field is a directory name. All files associated with this pmlogger
instance will be created in this directory, and this will be the current directory
for the execution of any programs required in the maintenance of those archives. A
useful convention is that primary logger archives for the local host with hostname
myhost are maintained in the directory $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/myhost (this is where
the default pmlogger start-up script in $PCP_RC_DIR/pcp will create the archives),
while archives for the remote host mumble are maintained in
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/mumble.
10. All other fields are interpreted as arguments to be passed to pmlogger(1) and/or
pmnewlog(1). Most typically this would be the -c option.

The following sample control lines specify a primary logger on the local host (bozo), and
a non-primary logger to collect and log performance metrics from the host boing.

$version=1.1
bozo y n $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/bozo -c config.default
boing n n $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/boing -c ./pmlogger.config

Typical crontab(5) entries for periodic execution of pmlogger_daily and pmlogger_check are
given in $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab (unless installed by default in /etc/cron.d
already) and shown below.

# daily processing of archive logs
14 0 * * * $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily
# every 30 minutes, check pmlogger instances are running
25,55 * * * * $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check

The output from the cron(1) execution of the scripts may be extended using the -V option
to the scripts which will enable verbose tracing of their activity. By default the
scripts generate no output unless some error or warning condition is encountered.

The -N option enables a ``show me'' mode, where the actions are echoed, but not executed,
in the style of ``make -n''. Using -N in conjunction with -V maximizes the diagnostic
capabilities for debugging.

By default all possible archives will be merged. The -o option reinstates the old
behaviour in which only yesterday's archives will be considered as merge candidates.

The -T option provides a terser form of output for pmlogger_check that is most suitable
for a pmlogger ``farm'' where many instances of pmlogger are expected to be running.

To accommodate the evolution of PMDAs and changes in production logging environments,
pmlogger_daily is integrated with pmlogrewrite(1) to allow optional and automatic
rewriting of archives before merging. If there are global rewriting rules to be applied
across all archives mentioned in the control file, then create the directory
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite and place any pmlogrewrite(1) rewriting rules in this
directory. For rewriting rules that are specific to only one family of archives, use the
directory name from the control file (the fourth field) and create a file, or a directory,
or a symbolic link named pmlogrewrite within this directory and place the required
rewriting rule(s) in the pmlogrewrite file or in files within the pmlogrewrite
subdirectory. pmlogger_daily will choose rewriting rules from the archive directory if
they exist, else rewriting rules from $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite if that directory
exists, else no rewriting is attempted.

The -r command line option acts as an over-ride and prevents all archive rewriting with
pmlogrewrite(1) independent of the presence of any rewriting rule files or directories.

The script $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily could be copied and modified to implement a
site-specific procedure for end-of-week and/or end-of-month management for a set of PCP
archives.

FILES

       $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH
                 the PCP logger control file
                 Warning: this file must not be writable by any user other than root.

       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab
                 sample crontab for automated script execution by $PCP_USER  (or  root).   Exists
                 only if the platform does not support the /etc/cron.d mechanism.

       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/config.default
                 default  pmlogger  configuration  file  location  for  the local primary logger,
                 typically generated automatically by pmlogconf(1).

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname
                 default location for archives of performance information collected from the host
                 hostname

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname/lock
                 transient lock file to guarantee mutual exclusion during pmlogger administration
                 for  the  host  hostname  -  if  present,  can  be  safely  removed  if  neither
                 pmlogger_daily nor pmlogger_check are running

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname/Latest
                 PCP  archive  folio  created  by  mkaf(1) for the most recently launched archive
                 containing performance metrics from the host hostname

       $PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES
                 PCP ``notices'' file used by pmie(1) and friends

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).

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

FILES

PCP ENVIRONMENT

SEE ALSO