1PMPROXY(1) General Commands Manual PMPROXY(1)
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6 pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector daemon
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9 pmproxy [-Af] [-C dirname] [-i ipaddress] [-l logfile] [-L bytes] [-p
10 port[,port ...] [-P passfile] [-U username] [-x file]
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13 pmproxy acts as a protocol proxy for pmcd(1), allowing Performance Co-
14 Pilot (PCP) monitoring clients to connect to one or more pmcd(1)
15 instances via pmproxy.
16 Normally pmproxy is deployed in a firewall domain, or on a ``head''
18 node of a cluster where the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the hosts
19 where pmcd(1) is running may be unknown to the PCP monitoring clients,
20 although the IP address of the host where pmproxy is running is known
21 to these clients. Similarly, the clients may have network connectivity
22 only to the host where pmproxy is running, while there is network con‐
23 nectivity from that host to the hosts of interest where pmcd(1) is run‐
24 ning.
25 The behaviour of the PCP monitoring clients is controlled by either the
27 PMPROXY_HOST environment variable or through the extended hostname
28 specification (see PCPIntro(1) for details). If neither of these mech‐
29 anisms is used, clients will make their connections directly to
30 pmcd(1). If the proxy hostname syntax is used or PMPROXY_HOST is set,
31 then this should be the hostname or IP address of the system where
32 pmproxy is running, and the clients will connect to pmcd(1) indirectly
33 through the protocol proxy services of pmproxy.
34 The options to pmproxy are as follows.
36 -A Disable service advertisement. By default, pmproxy will adver‐
38 tise its presence on the network using any available mechanisms
39 (such as Avahi/DNS-SD), assisting remote monitoring tools with
40 finding it. These mechanisms are disabled with this option.
41 -C dirname
43 Specify the path to the Network Security Services certificate
44 database, for (optional) secure connections. The default is
45 /etc/pki/nssdb. Refer also to the -P option. If it does not
46 already exist, this database can be created using the certutil
47 utility. This process and other certificate database mainte‐
48 nance information is provided in the PCPIntro(1) manual page and
49 the online PCP tutorials.
50 -f By default pmproxy is started as a daemon. The -f option indi‐
52 cates that it should run in the foreground. This is most useful
53 when trying to diagnose problems with establishing connections.
54 -i ipaddress
56 This option is usually only used on hosts with more than one
57 network interface (very common for firewall and ``head'' node
58 hosts where pmproxy is most likely to be deployed). If no -i
59 options are specified pmproxy accepts PCP client connections on
60 any of its host's IP addresses. The -i option is used to spec‐
61 ify explicitly an IP address that PCP client connections should
62 be accepted on. ipaddress should be in the standard dotted form
63 (e.g. 100.23.45.6). The -i option may be used multiple times to
64 define a list of IP addresses. When one or more -i options is
65 specified, attempted connections made on any other IP addresses
66 will be refused.
67 -l logfile
69 By default a log file named pmproxy.log is written in the cur‐
70 rent directory. The -l option causes the log file to be written
71 to logfile instead of the default. If the log file cannot be
72 created or is not writable, output is written to the standard
73 error instead.
74 -L bytes
76 PDUs received by pmproxy from PCP monitoring clients are
77 restricted to a maximum size of 65536 bytes by default to defend
78 against Denial of Service attacks. The -L option may be used to
79 change the maximum incoming PDU size.
80 -P passfile
82 Specify the path to a file containing the Network Security Ser‐
83 vices certificate database password for (optional) secure con‐
84 nections, and for databases that are password protected. Refer
85 also to the -C option. When using this option, great care
86 should be exercised to ensure appropriate ownership ("pcp" user,
87 typically) and permissions on this file (0400, so as to be
88 unreadable by any user other than the user running the pmproxy
89 process).
90 -U username
92 Assume the identity of username before starting to accept incom‐
93 ing packets from PCP monitoring clients.
94 -x file
96 Before the pmproxy logfile can be opened, pmproxy may encounter
97 a fatal error which prevents it from starting. By default, the
98 output describing this error is sent to /dev/tty but it may
99 redirected to file.
100
102 Normally, pmproxy is started automatically at boot time and stopped
103 when the system is being brought down. Under certain circumstances it
104 is necessary to start or stop pmproxy manually. To do this one must
105 become superuser and type
106 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start
108 to start pmproxy, or
110 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop
112 to stop pmproxy. Starting pmproxy when it is already running is the
114 same as stopping it and then starting it again.
115 Normally pmproxy listens for PCP client connections on TCP/IP port num‐
117 ber 44322 (registered at http://www.iana.org/). Either the environment
118 variable PMPROXY_PORT -p command line option may be used to specify
119 alternative port number(s) when PMPROXY_PORT or the -p command line
120 option may be used to specify alternative port number(s) when pmproxy
121 is started; in each case, the specification is a comma-separated list
122 of one or more numerical port numbers. Should both methods be used or
123 multiple -p options appear on the command line, pmproxy will listen on
124 the union of the set of ports specified via all -p options and the
125 PMPROXY_PORT environment variable. If non-default ports are used with
126 pmproxy care should be taken to ensure that PMPROXY_PORT is also set in
127 the environment of any client application that will connect to pmproxy,
128 or that the extended host specification syntax is used (see PCPIntro(1)
129 for details).
130
132 PCP_PMPROXYOPTIONS_PATH
133 command line options for pmproxy when launched from
134 $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy All the command line option lines should
135 start with a hyphen as the first character.
136 $PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmproxy
137 additional environment variables that will be set when pmproxy
138 executes. Only settings of the form "PMPROXY_VARIABLE=value"
139 will be honoured.
140 ./pmproxy.log
141 (or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.log when started automatically)
142 All messages and diagnostics are directed here
143 /etc/pki/nssdb
144 default Network Security Services (NSS) certificate database
145 directory, used for optional Secure Socket Layer connections.
146 This database can be created and queried using the NSS certutil
147 tool, amongst others.
148
150 In addition to the PCP environment variables described in the PCP ENVI‐
151 RONMENT section below, there are several environment variables that
152 influence the interactions between a PCP monitoring client, pmcd and
153 pmcd(1).
154 PMCD_PORT
156 For the PCP monitoring client this (or the default port number)
157 is passed to pmproxy and used to connect to pmcd(1). In the
158 environment of pmproxy PMCD_PORT is not used.
159 PMPROXY_HOST
161 For the PCP monitoring client this is the hostname or IP address
162 of the host where pmproxy is running. In recent versions of PCP
163 (since version 3) this has been superseded by the extended host‐
164 name syntax (see PCPIntro(1) for details).
165 PMPROXY_PORT
167 For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which pmproxy
168 will accept connections. The default is 44322.
169 PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, PMCD_RECONNECT_TIMEOUT and PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
171 (see PCPIntro(1)) For the PCP monitoring client, setting these
172 environment variables will modify the timeouts used for interac‐
173 tions between the client and pmproxy (independent of which
174 pmcd(1) is being used). For pmproxy these same environment
175 variables control the timeouts between pmproxy and all pmcd(1)
176 instances (independent of which monitoring client is involved).
177 If set to the value 1, the PMPROXY_LOCAL environment variable will
179 cause pmproxy to run in a localhost-only mode of operation, where it
180 binds only to the loopback interface.
181 The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be set to indicate the maximum
183 length to which the queue of pending client connections may grow.
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186 Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
187 file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file
188 /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The
189 PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration
190 file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
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193 PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdbg(1), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
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196 If pmproxy is already running the message "Error: OpenRequestSocket
197 bind: Address already in use" will appear. This may also appear if
198 pmproxy was shutdown with an outstanding request from a client. In
199 this case, a request socket has been left in the TIME_WAIT state and
200 until the system closes it down (after some timeout period) it will not
201 be possible to run pmproxy.
202 In addition to the standard PCP debugging flags, see pmdbg(1), pmproxy
204 currently uses DBG_TRACE_CONTEXT for tracing client connections and
205 disconnections
206Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMPROXY(1)