NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | CONFIGURATION | FILES | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PMMGR(1)                   General Commands Manual                  PMMGR(1)

NAME         top

       pmmgr - pcp daemon manager

SYNOPSIS         top

       pmmgr [-v] [-c config-directory] [-p polling-interval] [-l log-file]

DESCRIPTION         top

       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 pmie, pmlogger, pmrep and other daemons
       running, and their archives/logs merged/rotated.  It provides an
       alternative to the default cron(1)-based management scripts for
       pmlogger and pmie.
       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, so this option may be repeated.  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.  There may be a short-lived thread inside pmmgr
            for startup and shutdown of each daemon for each target host.
       -l   log-file redirects standard output and error to the given log
            file, which is created anew
       -v   adds more verbose tracing to standard output.

CONFIGURATION         top

       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 and
       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-static
              This file contains a single line specifying the static string
              that should be used for the host-id value.  Specifying a value
              in this file overrides the hostid-metrics file specified
              below.  It should be noted that using this option will cause
              all target pmcds to be assigned the same hostid.  Thus, this
              is useful in monitoring single hosts, or if each monitored
              host has its own configuration directory.
       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) manual 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).  Consider
              including probe=192.168.1.0/24 to quickly scan the given IP
              address range.
       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 requested daemons.
              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.
       target-threads
              This file contains a limit on the number of concurrent threads
              that analyze potential target pmcds for their hostids and/or
              containers.  The default is a few dozen threads per CPU core,
              if known.  Set this to zero if remote pmcds should be analyzed
              sequentially.  A small number of threads is not a good idea if
              any potential target pmcds are unreachable, since
              $PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT may be several seconds long each.
       log-subdirectory-gc
              This file may contain a time interval specification as per the
              PCPintro(1) manual page.  All subdirectories of the
              log-directory are presumed to contain data for pmmgr-monitored
              servers.  Those that have not been modified 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).
       pmlogger-timefmt
              Specify a time format to use in the archive-* name for
              pmlogger generated archives. The default is "%Y%m%d.%H%M%S".
              Expected to be in strftime(3) format.
       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 and 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(1) manual 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 also 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.
       pmlogcheck-corrupt-gc
              Before archives are considered for merging, they are processed
              through pmlogcheck to check for corruption.  In the unlikely
              case of a problem, such archives are renamed out of the way
              (named "corrupt-*"), and retained up to a limited time.  This
              file specifies how long.  If this file exists, it the time
              interval it contains is the maximum age.  The default is
              90days.  To store corrupt archives indefinitely, set this to a
              large quantity like "99999weeks".
       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 down-samples 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- 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.
   MONITOR DAEMON MANAGEMENT
       pmmgr may be used to invoke arbitrary PCP client programs for each
       target pmcd.  This can enable automated invocation of reporting or
       relaying tools, such as pmrep, pcp2graphite or pcp2influxdb without
       needing a specialized system service.
       monitor
              If this file exists, then for each line in this file, a new
              background process will be invoked.  (It is restarted if it
              exits.)  The line specifies the beginning of the command line
              (including the program name); pmmgr appends a -h HOSTSPEC, and
              arranges to collect the standard output and standard error
              into separate monitor-NN.out and monitor-NN.err files under
              the log directory.

FILES         top

       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmmgr/
                 default configuration directory
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmmgr/
                 default logging directory

PCP ENVIRONMENT         top

       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         top

       PCPIntro(1), cron(1), pmcd(1), pmlogconf(1), pmlogger(1),
       pmieconf(1), pmie(1), pmrep(1), pcp2graphite(1), pcp2influxdb(1),
       pmlogreduce(1), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).

COLOPHON         top

       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
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       to man-pages@man7.org
Performance Co-Pilot                 PCP                            PMMGR(1)

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