Provided by: pcp_3.10.8build1_amd64 

NAME
pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector daemon
SYNOPSIS
pmproxy [-Af] [-C dirname] [-i ipaddress] [-l logfile] [-L bytes] [-p port[,port ...] [-P passfile] [-U
username] [-x file]
DESCRIPTION
pmproxy acts as a protocol proxy for pmcd(1), allowing Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) monitoring clients to
connect to one or more pmcd(1) instances via pmproxy.
Normally pmproxy is deployed in a firewall domain, or on a ``head'' node of a cluster where the IP
(Internet Protocol) address of the hosts where pmcd(1) is running may be unknown to the PCP monitoring
clients, although the IP address of the host where pmproxy is running is known to these clients.
Similarly, the clients may have network connectivity only to the host where pmproxy is running, while
there is network connectivity from that host to the hosts of interest where pmcd(1) is running.
The behaviour of the PCP monitoring clients is controlled by either the PMPROXY_HOST environment variable
or through the extended hostname specification (see PCPIntro(1) for details). If neither of these
mechanisms is used, clients will make their connections directly to pmcd(1). If the proxy hostname
syntax is used or PMPROXY_HOST is set, then this should be the hostname or IP address of the system where
pmproxy is running, and the clients will connect to pmcd(1) indirectly through the protocol proxy
services of pmproxy.
The options to pmproxy are as follows.
-A Disable service advertisement. By default, pmproxy will advertise its presence on the network
using any available mechanisms (such as Avahi/DNS-SD), assisting remote monitoring tools with
finding it. These mechanisms are disabled with this option.
-C dirname
Specify the path to the Network Security Services certificate database, for (optional) secure
connections. The default is /etc/pki/nssdb. Refer also to the -P option. If it does not already
exist, this database can be created using the certutil utility. This process and other
certificate database maintenance information is provided in the PCPIntro(1) manual page and the
online PCP tutorials.
-f By default pmproxy is started as a daemon. The -f option indicates that it should run in the
foreground. This is most useful when trying to diagnose problems with establishing connections.
-i ipaddress
This option is usually only used on hosts with more than one network interface (very common for
firewall and ``head'' node hosts where pmproxy is most likely to be deployed). If no -i options
are specified pmproxy accepts PCP client connections on any of its host's IP addresses. The -i
option is used to specify explicitly an IP address that PCP client connections should be accepted
on. ipaddress should be in the standard dotted form (e.g. 100.23.45.6). The -i option may be
used multiple times to define a list of IP addresses. When one or more -i options is specified,
attempted connections made on any other IP addresses will be refused.
-l logfile
By default a log file named pmproxy.log is written in the current directory. The -l option causes
the log file to be written to logfile instead of the default. If the log file cannot be created
or is not writable, output is written to the standard error instead.
-L bytes
PDUs received by pmproxy from PCP monitoring clients are restricted to a maximum size of 65536
bytes by default to defend against Denial of Service attacks. The -L option may be used to change
the maximum incoming PDU size.
-P passfile
Specify the path to a file containing the Network Security Services certificate database password
for (optional) secure connections, and for databases that are password protected. Refer also to
the -C option. When using this option, great care should be exercised to ensure appropriate
ownership ("pcp" user, typically) and permissions on this file (0400, so as to be unreadable by
any user other than the user running the pmproxy process).
-U username
Assume the identity of username before starting to accept incoming packets from PCP monitoring
clients.
-x file
Before the pmproxy logfile can be opened, pmproxy may encounter a fatal error which prevents it
from starting. By default, the output describing this error is sent to /dev/tty but it may
redirected to file.
STARTING AND STOPPING PMPROXY
Normally, pmproxy is started automatically at boot time and stopped when the system is being brought
down. Under certain circumstances it is necessary to start or stop pmproxy manually. To do this one
must become superuser and type
# $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start
to start pmproxy, or
# $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop
to stop pmproxy. Starting pmproxy when it is already running is the same as stopping it and then
starting it again.
Normally pmproxy listens for PCP client connections on TCP/IP port number 44322 (registered at
http://www.iana.org/). Either the environment variable PMPROXY_PORT -p command line option may be used
to specify alternative port number(s) when PMPROXY_PORT or the -p command line option may be used to
specify alternative port number(s) when pmproxy is started; in each case, the specification is a comma-
separated list of one or more numerical port numbers. Should both methods be used or multiple -p options
appear on the command line, pmproxy will listen on the union of the set of ports specified via all -p
options and the PMPROXY_PORT environment variable. If non-default ports are used with pmproxy care
should be taken to ensure that PMPROXY_PORT is also set in the environment of any client application that
will connect to pmproxy, or that the extended host specification syntax is used (see PCPIntro(1) for
details).
FILES
PCP_PMPROXYOPTIONS_PATH
command line options for pmproxy when launched from $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy All the command line
option lines should start with a hyphen as the first character.
$PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmproxy
additional environment variables that will be set when pmproxy executes. Only settings of the
form "PMPROXY_VARIABLE=value" will be honoured.
./pmproxy.log
(or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.log when started automatically)
All messages and diagnostics are directed here
/etc/pki/nssdb
default Network Security Services (NSS) certificate database directory, used for optional Secure
Socket Layer connections. This database can be created and queried using the NSS certutil tool,
amongst others.
ENVIRONMENT
In addition to the PCP environment variables described in the PCP ENVIRONMENT section below, there are
several environment variables that influence the interactions between a PCP monitoring client, pmcd and
pmcd(1).
PMCD_PORT
For the PCP monitoring client this (or the default port number) is passed to pmproxy and used to
connect to pmcd(1). In the environment of pmproxy PMCD_PORT is not used.
PMPROXY_HOST
For the PCP monitoring client this is the hostname or IP address of the host where pmproxy is
running. In recent versions of PCP (since version 3) this has been superseded by the extended
hostname syntax (see PCPIntro(1) for details).
PMPROXY_PORT
For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which pmproxy will accept connections. The
default is 44322.
PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, PMCD_RECONNECT_TIMEOUT and PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
(see PCPIntro(1)) For the PCP monitoring client, setting these environment variables will modify
the timeouts used for interactions between the client and pmproxy (independent of which pmcd(1) is
being used). For pmproxy these same environment variables control the timeouts between pmproxy
and all pmcd(1) instances (independent of which monitoring client is involved).
If set to the value 1, the PMPROXY_LOCAL environment variable will cause pmproxy to run in a localhost-
only mode of operation, where it binds only to the loopback interface.
The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be set to indicate the maximum length to which the queue of pending
client connections may grow.
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), pmdbg(1), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
DIAGNOSTICS
If pmproxy is already running the message "Error: OpenRequestSocket bind: Address already in use" will
appear. This may also appear if pmproxy was shutdown with an outstanding request from a client. In this
case, a request socket has been left in the TIME_WAIT state and until the system closes it down (after
some timeout period) it will not be possible to run pmproxy.
In addition to the standard PCP debugging flags, see pmdbg(1), pmproxy currently uses DBG_TRACE_CONTEXT
for tracing client connections and disconnections
Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMPROXY(1)