Ubuntu Manpage: pmprobe - lightweight probe for performance metrics

NAME

       pmprobe - lightweight probe for performance metrics

SYNOPSIS

       pmprobe [-fIiLVvz] [-a archive] [-h hostname] [-K spec] [-n pmnsfile] [-O time] [-Z timezone] [metricname
       ...]

DESCRIPTION

pmprobe determines the availability of performance metrics exported through the facilities of the
Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).

The metrics of interest are named in the metricname arguments. If metricname is a non-leaf node in the
Performance Metrics Name Space (pmns(5)), then pmprobe will recursively descend the PMNS and report on
all leaf nodes. If no metricname argument is given, the root of the namespace is used.

The output format is spartan and intended for use in wrapper scripts creating configuration files for
other PCP tools. By default, there is one line of output per metric, with the metric name followed by a
count of the number of available values. Error conditions are encoded as a negative value count (as per
the PMAPI(3) protocols, but may be decoded using pmerr(1)) and followed by a textual description of the
error.

Unless directed to another host by the -h option, pmprobe will contact the Performance Metrics Collector
Daemon (PMCD) on the local host.

The -a option causes pmprobe to use the specified archive rather than connecting to a PMCD. The -a and
-h options are mutually exclusive.

The -L option causes pmprobe to use a local context to collect metrics from PMDAs on the local host
without PMCD. Only some metrics are available in this mode. The -a,-h and -L options are mutually
exclusive.

Normally pmprobe operates on the distributed Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS), however, if the -n
option is specified an alternative local PMNS file is loaded from the file pmnsfile.

Other options control the output of additional information when one or more values is available.

-f When used with -i or -I the set of instances reported will be all of those known at the source of
the performance data. By default the set of reported instances are those for which values are
currently available, which may be smaller than the set reported with -f.

-I Report the external identifiers for each instance. The literal string PM_IN_NULL is reported for
singular metrics.

-i Report the internal identifiers for each instance. The values are in decimal and prefixed by ``?''.
As a special case, the literal string PM_IN_NULL is reported for singular metrics.

-K When using the -L option to fetch metrics from a local context, the -K option may be used to control
the DSO PMDAs that should be made accessible. The spec argument conforms to the syntax described in
__pmSpecLocalPMDA(3). More than one -K option may be used.

-O When used in conjunction with an archive source of metrics and the -v option the time argument
defines a time origin at which the metrics should be fetched from the archive. Refer to PCPIntro(1)
for a complete description of this option, and the syntax for the time argument.

When the ``ctime'' format is used for the time argument in a -O option, the timezone becomes an
issue. The default is to use the local timezone on the system where pmprobe is run. The -Z option
changes the timezone to timezone in the format of the environment variable TZ as described in
environ(7). The -z option changes the timezone to the local timezone at the host that is the source
of the performance metrics, as identified via the -a option.

-v Report the value for each instance, as per the formatting rules of pmPrintValue(3). When fetching
from an archive, only those instances present in the first archive record for a metric will be
displayed; see also the -O option.

The -v option is mutually exclusive with either the -I or -i options.

The -V option provides a cryptic summary of the number of messages sent and received across the PMAPI
interface.

EXAMPLES

       $ pmprobe disk.dev
       disk.dev.read 2
       disk.dev.write 2
       disk.dev.total 2
       disk.dev.blkread 2
       disk.dev.blkwrite 2
       disk.dev.blktotal 2
       disk.dev.active 2
       disk.dev.response 2

       $ pmprobe -I disk.dev.read disk.dev.write disk.all.total
       disk.dev.read 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
       disk.dev.write 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
       disk.all.total 1 PM_IN_NULL

       $ pmprobe -v pmcd.numagents pmcd.version pmcd.control.timeout
       pmcd.numagents 1 9
       pmcd.version 1 "2.0 beta-1"
       pmcd.control.timeout 1 5

       $ pmprobe -v disk.dev.total disk.all.total
       disk.dev.total -1012 Unknown metric name
       disk.all.total 1 4992466

FILES

       $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
                 default PMNS specification files

PCP ENVIRONMENT