1PMPROXY(1)                  General Commands Manual                 PMPROXY(1)
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NAME

6       pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector daemon
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SYNOPSIS

9       pmproxy  [-Aft] [-C dirname] [-i ipaddress] [-l logfile] [-L bytes] [-M
10       certname] [-p port[,port ...]  [-P passfile] [-U username] [-x file]
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DESCRIPTION

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
17       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.
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26       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.
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35       The options to pmproxy are as follows.
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37       -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
42       -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
51       -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.
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55       -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.
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68       -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
75       -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
81       -M certname
82              By default, pmproxy will try to use  a  certificate  called  PCP
83              Collector  certificate  in its server role. The -M option allows
84              this to be changed.
85
86       -P passfile
87              Specify the path to a file containing the Network Security  Ser‐
88              vices  certificate  database password for (optional) secure con‐
89              nections, and for databases that are password protected.   Refer
90              also  to  the  -C  option.   When  using this option, great care
91              should be exercised to ensure appropriate ownership ("pcp" user,
92              typically)  and  permissions  on  this  file  (0400, so as to be
93              unreadable by any user other than the user running  the  pmproxy
94              process).
95
96       -t, --timeseries
97              Operate  in  automatic  archive timeseries discovery mode.  This
98              (experimental) mode of operation  will  detect  system  archives
99              created  by  pmlogger(1) and import into a redis-server(1) auto‐
100              matically, for fast, scalable timeseries queries.
101
102       -U username
103              Assume the identity of username before starting to accept incom‐
104              ing packets from PCP monitoring clients.
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106       -x file
107              Before  the pmproxy logfile can be opened, pmproxy may encounter
108              a fatal error which prevents it from starting.  By default,  the
109              output  describing  this  error  is  sent to /dev/tty but it may
110              redirected to file.
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STARTING AND STOPPING PMPROXY

113       Normally, pmproxy is started automatically at  boot  time  and  stopped
114       when  the system is being brought down.  Under certain circumstances it
115       is necessary to start or stop pmproxy manually.  To do  this  one  must
116       become superuser and type
117
118       # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start
119
120       to start pmproxy, or
121
122       # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop
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124       to  stop  pmproxy.   Starting pmproxy when it is already running is the
125       same as stopping it and then starting it again.
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127       Normally pmproxy listens for PCP client connections on TCP/IP port num‐
128       ber 44322 (registered at http://www.iana.org/).  Either the environment
129       variable PMPROXY_PORT -p command line option may  be  used  to  specify
130       alternative  port  number(s)  when  PMPROXY_PORT or the -p command line
131       option may be used to specify alternative port number(s)  when  pmproxy
132       is  started;  in each case, the specification is a comma-separated list
133       of one or more numerical port numbers.  Should both methods be used  or
134       multiple  -p options appear on the command line, pmproxy will listen on
135       the union of the set of ports specified via  all  -p  options  and  the
136       PMPROXY_PORT  environment variable.  If non-default ports are used with
137       pmproxy care should be taken to ensure that PMPROXY_PORT is also set in
138       the environment of any client application that will connect to pmproxy,
139       or that the extended host specification syntax is used (see PCPIntro(1)
140       for details).
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FILES

143       PCP_PMPROXYOPTIONS_PATH
144              command   line   options   for   pmproxy   when   launched  from
145              $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy All the command  line  option  lines  should
146              start with a hyphen as the first character.
147       $PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmproxy
148              additional  environment  variables that will be set when pmproxy
149              executes.  Only settings of  the  form  "PMPROXY_VARIABLE=value"
150              will be honoured.
151       ./pmproxy.log
152              (or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.log when started automatically)
153              All messages and diagnostics are directed here
154       /etc/pki/nssdb
155              default  Network  Security  Services  (NSS) certificate database
156              directory, used for optional Secure  Socket  Layer  connections.
157              This  database can be created and queried using the NSS certutil
158              tool, amongst others.
159

ENVIRONMENT

161       In addition to the PCP environment variables described in the PCP ENVI‐
162       RONMENT  section  below,  there  are several environment variables that
163       influence the interactions between a PCP monitoring  client,  pmcd  and
164       pmcd(1).
165
166       PMCD_PORT
167              For  the PCP monitoring client this (or the default port number)
168              is passed to pmproxy and used to connect  to  pmcd(1).   In  the
169              environment of pmproxy PMCD_PORT is not used.
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171       PMPROXY_HOST
172              For the PCP monitoring client this is the hostname or IP address
173              of the host where pmproxy is running.  In recent versions of PCP
174              (since version 3) this has been superseded by the extended host‐
175              name syntax (see PCPIntro(1) for details).
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177       PMPROXY_PORT
178              For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which  pmproxy
179              will accept connections.  The default is 44322.
180
181       PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, PMCD_RECONNECT_TIMEOUT and PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
182              (see  PCPIntro(1))  For the PCP monitoring client, setting these
183              environment variables will modify the timeouts used for interac‐
184              tions  between  the  client  and  pmproxy  (independent of which
185              pmcd(1) is being used).   For  pmproxy  these  same  environment
186              variables  control  the timeouts between pmproxy and all pmcd(1)
187              instances (independent of which monitoring client is involved).
188
189       If set to the value 1,  the  PMPROXY_LOCAL  environment  variable  will
190       cause  pmproxy  to  run in a localhost-only mode of operation, where it
191       binds only to the loopback interface.
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193       The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be  set  to  indicate  the  maximum
194       length to which the queue of pending client connections may grow.
195

PCP ENVIRONMENT

197       Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
198       file and directory names used by PCP.  On each installation,  the  file
199       /etc/pcp.conf  contains  the  local  values  for  these variables.  The
200       PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an  alternative  configuration
201       file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
202

SEE ALSO

204       PCPIntro(1),    pmcd(1),    pmdbg(1),   pmlogger(1),   redis-server(1),
205       pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
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DIAGNOSTICS

208       If pmproxy is already running  the  message  "Error:  OpenRequestSocket
209       bind:  Address  already  in  use" will appear.  This may also appear if
210       pmproxy was shutdown with an outstanding request  from  a  client.   In
211       this  case,  a  request socket has been left in the TIME_WAIT state and
212       until the system closes it down (after some timeout period) it will not
213       be possible to run pmproxy.
214
215       In  addition  to  the  standard  PCP  debugging  options, see pmdbg(1),
216       pmproxy currently supports the debugging  option  context  for  tracing
217       client connections and disconnections.
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221Performance Co-Pilot                  PCP                           PMPROXY(1)
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