NAME

       pmdashping - "shell-ping" performance metrics domain agent

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/pmdashping  [-C] [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-I interval] [-t timeout]
       [-U username] configfile

DESCRIPTION

       pmdashping is a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which exports quality  of  service
       and response time measurements for arbitrary commands as might be run from a shell such as
       sh(1).

       These measurements are intended to  be  used  to  quantify  service  quality  and  service
       availability  for  those  services  that  are  either  mission  critical  or  act as early
       indicators of adverse system performance.

       The sample configuration monitors simple  shell  commands  (exit  and  date(1)),  a  short
       computationally  intensive  task  using  sum(1),  a  short  C  compilation, DNS lookup via
       nslookup(1), YP lookup via ypcat(1), bind/portmapper service  using  rpcbind(1),  SMTP  by
       connecting  to telnet port 25 and sending an ``expn root'' request, and NNTP by connecting
       to telnet port 119 and running a ``listgroup'' command.

       It is expected that other commands would follow the examples in the  sample  configuration
       file,  and  most  deployments  of  the  pmdashping  PMDA  are expected to use a customized
       configuration file.

       A brief description of the pmdashping command line options follows:

       -C   Parse configfile, reporting any errors and exiting with non-zero status if  the  file
            contains syntactical errors.

       -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 shping.log is written in the
            current directory of pmcd(1) when pmdashping 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.

       -I   Amount of time (in seconds) between subsequent executions of  the  list  of  commands
            provided via the configuration file configfile.  The default is 2 minutes.

       -t   Amount  of  time  (in  seconds)  to  wait before timing out awaiting a response for a
            command from configfile.  The default is 20 seconds.

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

       The required configfile specifies ``tag'' and ``command'' pairs, each on a separate  line.
       All  of the commands are run one after another, with the whole group rescheduled to be run
       once per interval.  For each command that is run, pmdashping records  information  related
       to the success (or timeout), exit status, elapsed time and CPU time (system and user), and
       this information is exported by the PMDA.  The tags are used to  identify  the  individual
       commands  amongst  the  values exported by the PMDA, and form the external instance domain
       identifiers for the pmdashping metrics which relate to each command.

INSTALLATION

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

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping
            # ./Install

       The  set  of  ``tag''  and  ``command''  pairs  may  be  specified from a default (sample)
       configuration file, a customized file or entered interactively  as  part  of  the  Install
       script.

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

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping
            # ./Remove

       pmdashping  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 pmdashping
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/help
                 default help text file for the shping metrics
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/sample.conf
                 example configuration file with a number of common commands
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/Install
                 installation script for the pmdashping agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/shping/Remove
                 undo installation script for pmdashping
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/shping.log
                 default log file for error messages and other information from pmdashping

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

       pmcd(1) and pcp-shping(1).