Provided by: pcp-manager_3.10.8build1_amd64 
NAME
pmmgr - pcp daemon manager
SYNOPSIS
pmmgr [-v] [-c config-directory] [-p polling-interval] [-l log-file]
DESCRIPTION
pmmgr manages a collection of PCP daemons for a set of discovered local and remote hosts running the
Performance Metrics Collection Daemon (PMCD), according to zero or more configuration directories. It
keeps a matching set of pmlogger and/or pmie daemons running, and their archives/logs merged/rotated. It
supplants the older pmlogger_* and pmie_* check/daily management shell scripts.
pmmgr is largely self-configuring and perseveres despite most run-time errors. pmmgr runs in the
foreground until interrupted. When signaled, it will stop its running daemons before exiting.
A description of the command line options specific to pmmgr follows:
-c directory adds a given configuration directory to pmmgr. pmmgr can supervise multiple different
configurations at the same time. Errors in the configuration may be noted to standard error, but
pmmgr will fill in missing information with built-in defaults. The default directory is
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmmgr
-p polling-interval sets the host-discovery polling interval to the given number of seconds. The
default is 60. Daemons for a particular target host will be restarted no more frequently than this
interval.
-l log-file redirects standard output & error to the given log file, which is created anew
-v adds more verbose tracing to standard output.
CONFIGURATION
A pmmgr configuration identifies which hosts should be monitored, which daemons should be maintained for
them, and what options those daemons should be run with. pmmgr uses a small number of files in a
configuration directory, instead of lines in a text file. The individual files carry zero or more lines
of 100% pure configuration text, and no comments. (If desired, a configuration may be commented upon
with any other file, such as a free-form README.)
TARGET SELECTION
This set of configuration files identifies where pmmgr should search for pmcd instances, how to uniquely
identify them, and where state such as log files should be kept for each. Ideally, a persistent & unique
host-id string is computed for each potential target pmcd from specified metric values. This host-id is
also used as a subdirectory name for locating daemon data.
hostid-metrics
This file contains one or more lines of metric specifications in the format accepted by
pmParseMetricSpec. Metrics without instance specifiers mean all instances of that metric. These
are used to generate the unique host-id string for each pmcd server that pmmgr discovers. Upon
discovery, all the metrics/instances named are queried, string values fetched, and
normalized/concatenated into a single hyphenated printable string. The default is the single
metric pmcd.hostname, which is sufficient if all the hosts discovered have unique hostname(2). If
they don't, you should add other pcp metric specifications to set them apart at your site. The
more you add, the longer the host-id string, but the more likely that accidental duplication is
prevented.
However, it may be desirable for a host-id to also be persistent, so that if the target host goes
offline and later returns, the new host-id matches the previous one, because then old and new
histories can be joined. This argues against using metrics whose values vary from boot to boot.
Some candidate metrics to consider: network.interface.hw_addr,
network.interface.inet_addr["eth0"], network.interface.ipv6_addr, kernel.uname.nodename
log-directory
This file contains the path of a directory beneath which the per-host-id subdirectories are to be
created by pmmgr. If it is not a full path, it is implicitly relative to the configuration
directory itself. The default is $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmmgr/.
target-host
This file contains one or more lines containing pmcd host specifications, as described on the
PCPintro(1) man page. Each poll interval, pmmgr will attempt to make a brief pmNewContext
connection to the host to check liveness. It is not a problem if more than one specification for
the same host is listed, because the host-id processing eliminates duplicates, and chooses an
arbitrary specification among them. The default is to target pmcd at local:.
target-discovery
This file contains one or more lines containing specifications for the pmDiscoverServices PMAPI
call, each of which may map onto a fluctuating set of local or remote pmcd servers. Each poll
interval, pmmgr will attempt to rerun discovery with all of the given specifications. Again it is
not a problem if more than one specification matches the same actual pmcd: one confirmed access
path is arbitrarily selected. The default is to do no discovery. Consider including
avahi,timeout=5 to rely in pmcd self-announcements on the local network (searching for up to five
seconds each time).
subtarget-containers
If this file exists, pmmgr will scan each host that is found for running containers. For each
running container, it will create independent subtargets for running pmlogger instances. The
host-id string for these subtargets is the host's host-id string, followed by a double-hyphen,
then the full unique container instance-name string. (Temporarily, pmie instances are not
attempted for these subtargets, due to PCP bug PR1105.)
log-subdirectory-gc
This file may contain a time interval specification as per the PCPintro man page. All
subdirectories of the log-directory are presumed to contain data for pmmgr-monitored servers.
Those that have not been touched (in the stat/mtime sense) in at least that long, and not
associated with a currently monitored target, are deleted entirely. This value should be longer
than the longest interval that pmmgr normally recreates archives (such as due to pmmgr restarts,
and pmlogmerge intervals). The default value is 90days.
PMLOGGER CONFIGURATION
This group of configuration options controls a pmlogger daemon for each host. This may include
generating its configuration, and managing its archives.
pmlogger
If and only if this file exists, pmmgr will maintain a pmlogger daemon for each targeted host.
This file contains one line of additional space-separated options for the pmie daemon. (pmmgr
already adds -h, -f, -r, -l, and perhaps -c.) The default is to maintain no pmlogger (and no
other configuration in this section is processed).
pmlogconf
If and only if this file exists, pmmgr will run pmlogconf to generate a configuration file for
each target pmcd. The file contains one line of space-separated additional options for the
pmlogconf program. pmlogconf's generated output file will be stored under the
log-directory/hostid subdirectory. (pmmgr already adds -c, -r, and -h.) The default is no
pmlogconf, so instead, the pmlogger file above should probably contain a -c option, to specify a
fixed pmlogger configuration.
ARCHIVE LOG MANAGEMENT
Default pmlogger configurations can collect tens of megabytes of data per day (possibly split into
multiple archives), per target host. If your disk space is less than infinite, or archive-splitting
unwieldy, this should be managed. In the default, unmanaged case, the system administrator is
responsible for managing the individual archive-* files from the per-host logging subdirectories. pmmgr
offers several other options, each representing different performance / usability tradeoffs.
ARCHIVE LOG MANAGEMENT - pmlogmerge
This style of archive log management regularly creates a single merged archive from prior archives for
each target host, in effect lopping off old data and appending the new. A single merged archive can be
relatively large (defaults to approximately 100-400 MB per host), and puts a corresponding I/O load on
storage, but is most convenient for a detailed long-timeframe analysis. Once pmlogger is restarted, it
always creates a new archive, so in the steady state, there will be one merged archive of recent history,
and one current archive being written-to by pmlogger.
pmlogmerge
If this file exists, pmmgr will run pmlogextract to periodically merge together preexisting log
archives for each target pmcd into a single large one. Then, the preexisting log archives are
deleted (including any prior merged ones). This configuration file may contain a time interval
specification as per the PCPintro man page, representing the period after which pmlogger should be
temporarily stopped, and archives merged. It represents the maximum amount of time that the
merged archive lags the present time. The default is 24hours.
pmlogmerge-granular
If this file exists, pmmgr will merge only a subset of preexisting log archives into the new one,
instead of all of them, so as to approximate a granular, aligned set of merged archives. The
subset chosen corresponds to the previous time interval specified by the pmlogmerge control file.
The default is no granularity.
pmlogmerge-rewrite
If this file exists, pmmgr will run pmlogrewrite -i (plus any other options listed in this file)
on each input archive before merging it. This will naturally require more disk I/O. The default
is no rewriting.
pmlogmerge-retain
pmmgr reduces/deletes any original-resolution archives after a time period specified by this file,
as measured by the file mtime. The period will also be passed to pmlogextract as a negative
parameter to -S. The default is 14days. To store archives indefinitely, set this to a large
quantity like "99999weeks".
pmlogreduce
If this file exists, then prior to removing archives that expire past the pmlogmerge-retain
period, they are processed with pmlogreduce to create reduced archives (named reduced-*). If the
file contains space-separated options, they are passed onto pmlogreduce. (By default, pmlogreduce
downsamples to a 600-second interval.)
pmlogreduce-retain
If this file exists, then reduced archives (identified by the reduced-* pattern) are deleted after
a time period specified by this file, as measured from the file mtime. Since this time is likely
that of the pmlogreduce run, the total retention time will be approximately the pmlogmerge-retain
time plus the pmlogreduce-retain time. The default is 90days. To store reduced archives
indefinitely, set this to a large quantity like "99999weeks".
PMIE CONFIGURATION
This group of configuration options controls a pmie daemon for each host. This may include generating a
custom configuration.
pmie If and only if this file exists, pmmgr will maintain a pmie daemon for each targeted pmcd. This
file contains one line of additional space-separated options for the pmie daemon. (pmmgr already
adds -h, -f, -l, and perhaps -c.) The default is to maintain no pmie (and no other configuration
in this section is processed).
pmieconf
If and only if this file exists, pmmgr will run pmieconf to generate a configuration file for each
target pmcd. The file contains one line of space-separated additional options for the pmieconf
program. pmieconf's generated output file will be stored under the log-directory/hostid
subdirectory. (pmmgr already adds -F, -c, and -f.) The default is no pmieconf, so instead, the
pmie file above should probably contain a -c option, to specify a fixed pmie configuration.
FILES
$PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmmgr/
default configuration directory
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmmgr/
default logging directory
BUGS
PCP ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parametrize 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), pmlogconf(1), pmlogger(1), pmieconf(1), pmie(1), pmlogreduce(1), pcp.conf(5) and
pcp.env(5).
Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMMGR(1)