1PMNS(5) File Formats Manual PMNS(5)
2
6 pmns - the performance metrics name space
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9 $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns
10
12 When using the Performance Metrics Programming Interface (PMAPI) of the
13 Performance Co-Pilot (PCP), performance metrics are identified by an
14 external name in a hierarchic Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS),
15 and an internal identifier, the Performance Metric Identifier (PMID).
16 A PMNS specifies the association between a metric's name and its PMID.
18 A PMNS is defined on one or more ASCII source files.
20 Loading of a PMNS is done by calling pmLoadNameSpace(3) or pmLoadASCI‐
22 INameSpace(3).
23 As of Version 3.10.3 of PCP, by default duplicate names for the same
25 PMID are allowed in the PMNS, although pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3) provides
26 an alternative interface with user-defined control over the processing
27 of duplicate names in the PMNS. The external format for a PMNS con‐
28 forms to the syntax and semantics described in the following sections.
29 There is one default PMNS in the files below $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns,
31 although users and application developers are free to create and use
32 alternate PMNS's. For an example of this, see the PCP Tutorial in
33 $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/Tutorial.
34 Although an application can call pmLoadNameSpace(3), normally this is
36 only done directly for the -n command line option where an explicit
37 root PMNS file is specified. Since PCP version 2 uses a distributed
38 PMNS (see below), an application can extract PMNS information from a
39 host's PMCD or an archive. If the PMNS source is a version 1 archive
40 (see PCPIntro(1)), however, then the local PMNS will be loaded using
41 the path specified by the environment variable PMNS_DEFAULT.
42
44 In PCP version 1, the PMNS functions in the API all operated on a PMNS
45 loaded locally from a file. Since PCP version 2, however, PMNS func‐
46 tions may get the PMNS information remotely from a PMCD or directly
47 from the meta data of an archive.
48
50 The PMNS specification is initially passed through pmcpp(1). This
51 means the following facilities may be used in the specification
52 + C-style comments
54 + #include directives
56 + #define directives and macro substitution
58 + conditional processing via #ifdef ... #endif, etc.
60 When pmcpp(1) is executed, the ``standard'' include directories are the
62 current directory and $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns.
63 The pre-processing with pmcpp(1) may be omitted in some cases where the
65 PMNS is known to not contain any C-style comments, preprocessor direc‐
66 tives or macros. Refer to the descriptions of pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3)
67 and pmLoadNameSpace(3) for details.
68
70 The general syntax for a non-leaf node in the PMNS is as follows
71 pathname {
73 name [pmid]
74 ...
75 }
76 Where pathname is the full pathname from the root of the PMNS to this
78 non-leaf node, with each component in the pathname separated by a
79 ``.''. The root node for the PMNS must have the special name ``root'',
80 but the common prefix ``root.'' must be omitted from all pathnames.
81 Each component in the pathname must begin with an alphabetic character,
82 and be followed by zero or more characters drawn from the alphabetics,
83 the digits and the underscore ``_'') character. For alphabetic charac‐
84 ters in a pathname component, upper and lower case are distinguished.
85 Non-leaf nodes in the PMNS may be defined in any order.
87 The descendent nodes are defined by the set of names, relative to the
89 pathname of their parent non-leaf node. For the descendent nodes, leaf
90 nodes have a pmid specification, non-leaf nodes do not. The syntax for
91 the pmid specification has been chosen to help manage the allocation of
92 PMIDs across disjoint and autonomous domains of administration and
93 implementation. Each pmid consists of 3 integer parts, separated by
94 colons, e.g. 14:27:11. This hierarchic numbering scheme is intended to
95 mirror the implementation hierarchy of performance metric domain, met‐
96 rics cluster (data structure or operational similarity) and individual
97 metric. In practice, the two leading components are likely to be
98 macros in the PMNS specification source, and pmcpp(1) will convert the
99 macros to integers. These macros for the initial components of the
100 pmid are likely to be defined either in a standard include file, e.g.
101 $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/stdpmid, or in the current source file.
102 To support dynamic metrics, where the existence of a metric is known to
104 a PMDA, but not visible in the PMNS, a variant syntax for the pmid is
105 supported, namely a domain number followed by asterisks for the other
106 components of the pmid, e.g. 14:*:*. The corresponding metric name
107 forms the root of a subtree of dynamic metric names defined in the cor‐
108 responding PMDA as identified by the domain number.
109 The current allocation of the high-order (PMD or domain) component of
111 PMIDs is as follows.
112 ┌────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┐
114 │ Range │ Allocation │
115 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
116 │ 0 │ reserved │
117 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
118 │ 1-31 │ PMDAs from the PCP base product │
119 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
120 │ 32-39 │ Oracle │
121 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
122 │ 40-47 │ Sybase │
123 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
124 │ 48-55 │ Informix │
125 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
126 │ 56-58 │ SNMP Gateway PMDA │
127 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
128 │ 59-63 │ Linux PMDAs │
129 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
130 │ 64-69 │ ISV PMDAs │
131 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
132 │ 70-128 │ more PMDAs from the PCP base product │
133 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
134 │129-510 │ End-user PMDAs and demo PMDAs │
135 ├────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
136 │ 511 │ RESERVED │
137 └────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┘
139 #define KERNEL 1
140 #define FOO 317
141 root {
142 network
143 cpu
144 dynamic FOO:*:*
145 }
146 #define NETWORK 26
148 network {
149 intrate KERNEL:NETWORK:1
150 packetrate
151 }
152 network.packetrate {
154 in KERNEL:NETWORK:35
155 out KERNEL:NETWORK:36
156 }
157 #define CPU 10
159 cpu {
160 syscallrate KERNEL:CPU:10
161 util
162 }
163 #define USER 20
165 #define SYSTEM 21
166 #define IDLE 22
167 cpu.util {
169 user KERNEL:CPU:USER
170 sys KERNEL:CPU:SYSTEM
171 idle KERNEL:CPU:IDLE
172 }
173
175 PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmcpp(1), PCPIntro(3), PMAPI(3), pmErrStr(3),
176 pmGetConfig(3), pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3), pmLoadNameSpace(3),
177 pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
178Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMNS(5)