1PMPROBE(1) General Commands Manual PMPROBE(1)
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6 pmprobe - lightweight probe for performance metrics
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9 pmprobe [-fIiLVvz] [-a archive] [-h hostname] [-K spec] [-n pmnsfile]
10 [-O time] [-Z timezone] [metricname ...]
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13 pmprobe determines the availability of performance metrics exported
14 through the facilities of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).
15 The metrics of interest are named in the metricname arguments. If met‐
17 ricname is a non-leaf node in the Performance Metrics Name Space
18 (pmns(5)), then pmprobe will recursively descend the PMNS and report on
19 all leaf nodes. If no metricname argument is given, the root of the
20 namespace is used.
21 The output format is spartan and intended for use in wrapper scripts
23 creating configuration files for other PCP tools. By default, there is
24 one line of output per metric, with the metric name followed by a count
25 of the number of available values. Error conditions are encoded as a
26 negative value count (as per the PMAPI(3) protocols, but may be decoded
27 using pmerr(1)) and followed by a textual description of the error.
28 Unless directed to another host by the -h option, pmprobe will contact
30 the Performance Metrics Collector Daemon (PMCD) on the local host.
31 The -a option causes pmprobe to use the specified archive rather than
33 connecting to a PMCD. The -a and -h options are mutually exclusive.
34 The -L option causes pmprobe to use a local context to collect metrics
36 from PMDAs on the local host without PMCD. Only some metrics are
37 available in this mode. The -a,-h and -L options are mutually exclu‐
38 sive.
39 Normally pmprobe operates on the distributed Performance Metrics Name
41 Space (PMNS), however, if the -n option is specified an alternative
42 local PMNS file is loaded from the file pmnsfile.
43 Other options control the output of additional information when one or
45 more values is available.
46 -f When used with -i or -I the set of instances reported will be all
48 of those known at the source of the performance data. By default
49 the set of reported instances are those for which values are cur‐
50 rently available, which may be smaller than the set reported with
51 -f.
52 -I Report the external identifiers for each instance. The literal
54 string PM_IN_NULL is reported for singular metrics.
55 -i Report the internal identifiers for each instance. The values are
57 in decimal and prefixed by ``?''. As a special case, the literal
58 string PM_IN_NULL is reported for singular metrics.
59 -K When using the -L option to fetch metrics from a local context,
61 the -K option may be used to control the DSO PMDAs that should be
62 made accessible. The spec argument conforms to the syntax
63 described in __pmSpecLocalPMDA(3). More than one -K option may be
64 used.
65 -O When used in conjunction with an archive source of metrics and the
67 -v option the time argument defines a time origin at which the
68 metrics should be fetched from the archive. Refer to PCPIntro(1)
69 for a complete description of this option, and the syntax for the
70 time argument.
71 When the ``ctime'' format is used for the time argument in a -O
73 option, the timezone becomes an issue. The default is to use the
74 local timezone on the system where pmprobe is run. The -Z option
75 changes the timezone to timezone in the format of the environment
76 variable TZ as described in environ(7). The -z option changes the
77 timezone to the local timezone at the host that is the source of
78 the performance metrics, as identified via the -a option.
79 -v Report the value for each instance, as per the formatting rules of
81 pmPrintValue(3). When fetching from an archive, only those
82 instances present in the first archive record for a metric will be
83 displayed; see also the -O option.
84 The -v option is mutually exclusive with either the -I or -i options.
86 The -V option provides a cryptic summary of the number of messages sent
88 and received across the PMAPI interface.
89
91 $ pmprobe disk.dev
92 disk.dev.read 2
93 disk.dev.write 2
94 disk.dev.total 2
95 disk.dev.blkread 2
96 disk.dev.blkwrite 2
97 disk.dev.blktotal 2
98 disk.dev.active 2
99 disk.dev.response 2
100 $ pmprobe -I disk.dev.read disk.dev.write disk.all.total
102 disk.dev.read 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
103 disk.dev.write 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
104 disk.all.total 1 PM_IN_NULL
105 $ pmprobe -v pmcd.numagents pmcd.version pmcd.control.timeout
107 pmcd.numagents 1 9
108 pmcd.version 1 "2.0 beta-1"
109 pmcd.control.timeout 1 5
110 $ pmprobe -v disk.dev.total disk.all.total
112 disk.dev.total -1012 Unknown metric name
113 disk.all.total 1 4992466
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116 $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
117 default PMNS specification files
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120 Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
121 file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file
122 /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The
123 $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration
124 file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
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127 PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdumplog(1), pminfo(1), PMAPI(3), pmErrStr(3),
128 __pmSpecLocalPMDA(3), pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and pmns(5).
129Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMPROBE(1)