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 [-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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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 -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 -U username
103 Assume the identity of username before starting to accept incom‐
104 ing packets from PCP monitoring clients.
105 -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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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 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start
119 to start pmproxy, or
121 # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop
123 to stop pmproxy. Starting pmproxy when it is already running is the
125 same as stopping it and then starting it again.
126 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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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
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 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.
170 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).
176 PMPROXY_PORT
178 For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which pmproxy
179 will accept connections. The default is 44322.
180 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 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.
192 The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be set to indicate the maximum
194 length to which the queue of pending client connections may grow.
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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).
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204 PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdbg(1), pmlogger(1), redis-server(1),
205 pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).
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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 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.
218Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMPROXY(1)