pmlc(1) — Linux manual page
PMLC(1) General Commands Manual PMLC(1)
NAME
pmlc - configure active Performance Co-Pilot pmlogger(s)
interactively
SYNOPSIS
pmlc [-eiPz?] [-h host] [-n pmnsfile] [-p port] [-Z timezone]
[pid]
DESCRIPTION
pmlc may be used to change those metrics and instances which a
pmlogger(1) writes to a Performance Co-Pilot archive (see
PCPIntro(1)), the frequency with which the metrics are collected
and whether the logging is mandatory, advisory, on or off. It
also reports the current logging status of metrics and instances.
pmlc may be used to control pmlogger instances on remote hosts as
well as those on the local host.
Normally pmlc operates on the distributed Performance Metrics
Name Space (PMNS), however if the -n option is specified an
alternative local PMNS is loaded from the file pmnsfile.
If the -P option is specified, pmlc will attempt to start with a
connection to the primary pmlogger on the local host. If the -p
option is specified, then pmlc will attempt to start with a
connection to the pmlogger on this TCP/IP port. Alternatively,
if pid is specified, a connection to the pmlogger instance with
that process id will be attempted on startup. The -h option may
only be used if -P, -p port or a pid is also specified. In that
case pmlc will initially connect to the specified (remote)
pmlogger instance on host rather than the local host. If the
connection to the specified pmlogger instance cannot be
established, pmlc will start with no connection. These options
typically allow the same file of pmlc commands to be directed to
multiple pmlogger instances by varying the command line
arguments. Note that -P, -p port, pid and -h are used only when
making an initial connection to a pmlogger instance. They are
not used as defaults if subsequent connections are made
interactively (see the connect command below).
By default, pmlc reports the time of day according to the local
timezone on the system where pmlc 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 timezone of the pmlogger instance from which
information is being obtained. Only one of -z or -Z may be
specified.
If standard input is from a tty, pmlc is interactive, with
prompts. The -i flag may be used to force interactive behavior,
and is typically used in conjunction with -e to echo all command
input on standard output.
COMMANDS
The following commands may be used:
show [ loggers ] [ @host ]
Displays the process identities of all pmlogger instances
running on the local host (or host, if specified). The
primary pmlogger pid is parenthesized because it can be
referred to as "primary" as well as by its pid.
connect pid [ @host ]
connect primary [ @host ]
Connects pmlc to the specified pmlogger process. Any
existing connection to a pmlogger instance is closed first.
Each pmlogger instance will accept at most one connection at
a time, so if the connection is successfully established,
your pmlc will be the only one controlling the pmlogger
instance it is connected to.
new volume
This command works only while a connection to a pmlogger
instance is established. It tells the pmlogger to close the
current volume of the archive and open a new volume. Closed
volumes may be compressed and/or moved to a remote system,
remote storage or off-line storage, e.g. as part of a regular
archive management procedure to control the size of the
physical archive files on the system where pmlogger is
running.
status
This command works only while a connection to a pmlogger
instance is established. It prints information about the
state of the pmlogger instance and its associated archive.
timezone local | logger | "timezone"
This command sets the time zone used when times are printed.
local means use the time zone of the machine that pmlc is
running on. logger means use the time zone of the machine
where the pmlogger instance is running. Alternatively an
explicit timezone enclosed in quotes may be supplied (refer
to TZ in environ(7) for details). The default time zone is
local unless one of the -z or -Z options has been supplied on
the command line.
flush
This command works only while a connection to a pmlogger
instance is established, and requests the pmlogger instance
to flush to disk all buffers associated with the current
archive. For old-timers, sync is a synonym for flush. In
current versions of pmlogger(1) all writes are unbuffered and
aligned with the logical records in the external files, so
this command achieves nothing, but is retained for backwards
compatibility.
disconnect
Disconnect pmlc from the current pmlogger instance, if any.
sleep delay
Pause pmlc for delay milliseconds. This may be helpful in
scripted uses of pmlc to allow the current pmlogger instance
to make progress on recent requests before interrogating the
status.
help
Displays a summary of the available commands.
h and ? are synonyms for help.
quit
Exits from pmlc.
The remaining commands query and change the logging state of
metrics and instances. They will work only if pmlc has a
connection to a pmlogger instance. Metrics may be specified as
fully qualified names (e.g. hinv.ncpu) or subtrees of the PMNS
(e.g. hinv) which are expanded to include all metrics in the
subtree (e.g. hinv.ncpu, hinv.cpuclock, etc.). Lists of metrics
may be specified by enclosing them in braces with spaces or a
comma between metrics (e.g. {hinv.ncpu hinv.ndisk}). Subtrees of
metrics may be included in such lists.
Each individual metric specification may be further qualified
with a space or comma separated list of instances in square
brackets (e.g. kernel.all.load["1 minute", "5 minute"]).
External instance names or numeric internal instance identifiers
or both may be used in the same list (e.g.
sample.colour.[red,1,"blue"]). If an instance qualification is
applied to a subtree of the PMNS all of the metrics in the
subtree must have the same instance domain. Instance
qualifications may not be applied to entire lists of metrics but
may appear inside such lists.
If no instances are specified for a metric, all instances are
used. All instances means all instances available at the time
the pmlogger instance in question fetches the metrics for
logging. If an instance domain changes over time this is not
always the same as the set of instances displayed by pmlc, which
can only display the currently available instances. To prevent
unintentional errors, only the instances that are currently
available to pmlc may appear in instance specifications.
query metriclist
The current logging state of each metric (and instances,
where applicable) in metriclist is displayed. This includes
the logging state (e.g. on, maybe, off) and the logging
interval for each metric (and instance) requested. The
following abbreviations pertaining to metrics (and instances)
may appear in the output: adv, advisory; mand, mandatory; nl,
not logged (not in the archive); na, in the archive but not
currently available from its Performance Metrics Domain Agent
(PMDA). Where appropriate, an instance name will appear last
on a line preceded by its numeric internal instance
identifier.
[ log ] mandatory on interval metriclist
This form of the log command turns on logging for the metrics
(and any instances) in metriclist. interval specifies how
often the specified metrics/instances should be logged. once
indicates that the metrics/instances should appear at most
once in the archive. More often one would use the optional
keyword every followed by a positive number and one of
millisecond (or msec), second (or sec), minute (or min), hour
or their plurals.
Note that the keyword default which may be used for the
default interval in a pmlogger(1) configuration file cannot
be used in pmlc.
Internal limitations require the interval to be less than
(approximately) 74 hours. An interval value of zero is a
synonym for once.
[ log ] mandatory off metriclist
This tells the pmlogger instance not to archive any of the
metrics/instances in metriclist.
[ log ] mandatory maybe metriclist
This tells the pmlogger instance to honor any subsequent
advisory logging requests for the metrics/instances in
metriclist. If the current logging state of the
metrics/instances is mandatory (either on or off) the new
state will be set to maybe (effectively advisory off). If
the current state of the metrics/instances is already
advisory (either on or off) the state(s) for the
metrics/instances will remain as they are.
[ log ] advisory on interval metriclist
[ log ] advisory off metriclist
Advisory logging is only applicable if the last logging state
specified for a metric/instance was "mandatory maybe" (which
permits subsequent advisory logging control) or if the
logging state is already advisory. These two statements turn
advisory logging on or off (respectively) for the specified
metrics/instances.
The interpretation for interval is as above for the mandatory
case.
There is no continuation character required for commands that
span lines.
The word at may be used interchangeably with @.
A request to archive all instances of a metric will supersede any
prior request to log either all or specific instances of a metric
(if the request specifies a permissible transition in the logging
state). A request to archive specific instances of a metric when
all instances of a metric are already being logged is refused by
pmlogger.
OPTIONS
The available command line options are:
-e, --echo
Echo all command input on standard output.
-h host, --host=host
Connect pmlogger on host, rather than on the default
localhost.
-i, --interactive
Force interactive behavior.
-n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS(5))
from the file pmnsfile.
-p port, --port=port
Connect to the primary pmlogger on TCP/IP port port.
-P, --primary
Connect to the primary pmlogger.
-z, --logzone
Use local time of the pmlogger as the reporting timezone.
-Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
Use timezone for the date and time. Timezone is in the
format of the environment variable TZ as described in
environ(7).
-?, --help
Display usage message and exit.
ACCESS CONTROL
pmlc may have restricted access to and control over pmlogger(1)
processes.
If a pmlogger(1) is unable to export its control information to
the local pmcd(1), then that pmlogger(1) cannot cannot be
connected to nor controlled by pmlc. In practice, this means the
pmlogger(1) process has to be owned by the user ``pcp'' and/or
the group ``pcp''. If pmlogger(1) is running on the host ``foo''
then use ``pminfo -f -h foo pmcd.pmlogger'' to verify that the
pmlogger(1) of interest is known to pmcd(1), alternatively
pmlogger(1) instances that are not reported from the pmlc show
loggers @foo command are not known to pmcd(1) on the host
``foo''.
If pmlogger(1) is launched with a configuration file that
contains an [access] section, then pmlc will be unable to connect
to that pmlogger(1) unless the access controls allow some access
from the host where pmlc is being run. Minimally this requires
the enquire access to be permitted in the pmlogger(1) access
control section.
If pmlc is able to connect to the pmlogger(1) of interest, then
the following table summarizes the permissions needed to perform
different pmlc commands:
┌───────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ pmlc command │ Required pmlogger access │
├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ show loggers │ Any │
│ connect │ Any of enquire, advisory or mandatory │
│ status │ Any of enquire, advisory or mandatory │
│ query ... │ Any of enquire, advisory or mandatory │
│ disconnect │ Any │
│ log advisory ... │ advisory │
│ log mandatory ... │ mandatory │
│ new volume │ mandatory │
└───────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
CAVEATS
If all instances of a metric are being logged and a request is
made to log specific instances of the metric with the same state
and frequency, the request may appear to succeed, even though
pmlogger has refused the request. This is not normally a
problem, as the required information will still be placed into
the archive by pmlogger.
However in the case where the metric is to be logged once, the
outcome is not what might be expected. When pmlogger receives a
request to archive a metric once, it places the current value(s)
of the metric into the archive as soon as it can, regardless of
whether the metric is already in the archive. This may be used
to force values into the archive. When a request to archive
specific instances of a metric arrives and is refused because all
instances of the metric are already being logged, pmlogger does
not place values for the instances requested into the archive.
It returns the current logging state for each instance requested
to pmlc. The requested and returned states are identical, so
pmlc doesn't raise an error as it should.
To ensure that only certain instances of a metric are being
logged, one should always turn off logging for all instances of
the metric prior to turning on logging for the specific instances
required.
DIAGNOSTICS
Most error or warning messages are self-explanatory. A message
of the form
Warning: unable to change logging state for...
followed by a list of metrics (and possibly instances) indicates
that pmlogger refused the request for the metrics (and instances)
that appear. Any metrics (and instances) that were specified but
do not appear in the message have had their logging state updated
successfully (no news is good news). Usually this warning
results from requesting advisory logging when a mandatory control
is already in place, or requesting logging for specific instances
when all instances are already being logged.
ENVIRONMENT
If the PMLOGGER_REQUEST_TIMEOUT environment variable is not set
or set to 0 (zero), then pmlc will block until a connection is
established with pmlogger(1) on the requested port. If
PMLOGGER_REQUEST_TIMEOUT is set to a value greater than zero,
then pmlc will fail with an error after that many seconds if a
connection isn't established. This may be used by administrative
scripts such as pmlogger_daily(1) to poll pmlogger when is
starting up until it is ready and listening on it's control port.
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), pmlogdump(1), pmlogger(1), pcp.conf(5),
pcp.env(5), PMNS(5) and environ(7).
COLOPHON
This page is part of the PCP (Performance Co-Pilot) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.pcp.io/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, send it to pcp@groups.io. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/performancecopilot/pcp.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2024-06-14.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMLC(1)
Pages that refer to this page: pcpintro(1), pmlogctl(1), pmlogextract(1), pmlogger(1), pmlogger_check(1), pmlogger_daily(1), pmlogreduce(1), pmsnap(1), __pmconnectlogger(3), __pmcontrollog(3)