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] [-M
10 certname] [-p 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 -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 -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 -U username
97 Assume the identity of username before starting to accept incom‐
98 ing packets from PCP monitoring clients.
99 -x file
101 Before the pmproxy logfile can be opened, pmproxy may encounter
102 a fatal error which prevents it from starting. By default, the
103 output describing this error is sent to /dev/tty but it may
104 redirected to file.
105
107 Normally, pmproxy is started automatically at boot time and stopped
108 when the system is being brought down. Under certain circumstances it
109 is necessary to start or stop pmproxy manually. To do this one must
110 become superuser and type
111 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start
113 to start pmproxy, or
115 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop
117 to stop pmproxy. Starting pmproxy when it is already running is the
119 same as stopping it and then starting it again.
120 Normally pmproxy listens for PCP client connections on TCP/IP port num‐
122 ber 44322 (registered at http://www.iana.org/). Either the environment
123 variable PMPROXY_PORT -p command line option may be used to specify
124 alternative port number(s) when PMPROXY_PORT or the -p command line
125 option may be used to specify alternative port number(s) when pmproxy
126 is started; in each case, the specification is a comma-separated list
127 of one or more numerical port numbers. Should both methods be used or
128 multiple -p options appear on the command line, pmproxy will listen on
129 the union of the set of ports specified via all -p options and the
130 PMPROXY_PORT environment variable. If non-default ports are used with
131 pmproxy care should be taken to ensure that PMPROXY_PORT is also set in
132 the environment of any client application that will connect to pmproxy,
133 or that the extended host specification syntax is used (see PCPIntro(1)
134 for details).
135
137 PCP_PMPROXYOPTIONS_PATH
138 command line options for pmproxy when launched from
139 $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy All the command line option lines should
140 start with a hyphen as the first character.
141 $PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmproxy
142 additional environment variables that will be set when pmproxy
143 executes. Only settings of the form "PMPROXY_VARIABLE=value"
144 will be honoured.
145 ./pmproxy.log
146 (or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.log when started automatically)
147 All messages and diagnostics are directed here
148 /etc/pki/nssdb
149 default Network Security Services (NSS) certificate database
150 directory, used for optional Secure Socket Layer connections.
151 This database can be created and queried using the NSS certutil
152 tool, amongst others.
153
155 In addition to the PCP environment variables described in the PCP ENVI‐
156 RONMENT section below, there are several environment variables that
157 influence the interactions between a PCP monitoring client, pmcd and
158 pmcd(1).
159 PMCD_PORT
161 For the PCP monitoring client this (or the default port number)
162 is passed to pmproxy and used to connect to pmcd(1). In the
163 environment of pmproxy PMCD_PORT is not used.
164 PMPROXY_HOST
166 For the PCP monitoring client this is the hostname or IP address
167 of the host where pmproxy is running. In recent versions of PCP
168 (since version 3) this has been superseded by the extended host‐
169 name syntax (see PCPIntro(1) for details).
170 PMPROXY_PORT
172 For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which pmproxy
173 will accept connections. The default is 44322.
174 PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, PMCD_RECONNECT_TIMEOUT and PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
176 (see PCPIntro(1)) For the PCP monitoring client, setting these
177 environment variables will modify the timeouts used for interac‐
178 tions between the client and pmproxy (independent of which
179 pmcd(1) is being used). For pmproxy these same environment
180 variables control the timeouts between pmproxy and all pmcd(1)
181 instances (independent of which monitoring client is involved).
182 If set to the value 1, the PMPROXY_LOCAL environment variable will
184 cause pmproxy to run in a localhost-only mode of operation, where it
185 binds only to the loopback interface.
186 The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be set to indicate the maximum
188 length to which the queue of pending client connections may grow.
189
191 Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
192 file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file
193 /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The
194 PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration
195 file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
196
198 PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdbg(1), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
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201 If pmproxy is already running the message "Error: OpenRequestSocket
202 bind: Address already in use" will appear. This may also appear if
203 pmproxy was shutdown with an outstanding request from a client. In
204 this case, a request socket has been left in the TIME_WAIT state and
205 until the system closes it down (after some timeout period) it will not
206 be possible to run pmproxy.
207 In addition to the standard PCP debugging options, see pmdbg(1),
209 pmproxy currently supports the debugging option context for tracing
210 client connections and disconnections.
211Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMPROXY(1)