'\"macro stdmacro
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.TH PMPROBE 1 "PCP" "Performance Co-Pilot"
.SH NAME
\f3pmprobe\f1 \- lightweight probe for performance metrics
.SH SYNOPSIS
\f3pmprobe\f1
[\f3\-fFIiLVvz\f1]
[\f3\-a\f1 \f2archive\f1]
[\f3\-b\f1 \f2batchsize\f1]
[\f3\-h\f1 \f2hostname\f1]
[\f3\-K\f1 \f2spec\f1]
[\f3\-n\f1 \f2pmnsfile\f1]
[\f3\-O\f1 \f2time\f1]
[\f3\-Z\f1 \f2timezone\f1]
[\f2metricname\f1 ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pmprobe
determines the availability of performance metrics
exported through the facilities of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).
.PP
The metrics of interest are named in the
.I metricname
arguments.
If
.I metricname
is a non-leaf node in the Performance Metrics Name Space (\c
.BR pmns (5)),
then
.B pmprobe
will recursively descend the PMNS and report on all leaf nodes.
If no
.I metricname
argument is given, the root of the namespace is used.
.PP
This recursive expansion of the PMNS can be inhibited by the
.B \-F
(go faster) option, which reduces the number of roundtrips to
.BR pmcd (1)
when the
.I metricname
arguments are known to be leaf nodes ahead of time.
.PP
The output format is spartan and intended for use in wrapper
scripts creating configuration files for other PCP tools.
By default, there is one line of output per metric, with the
metric name followed by a count of the number of available values.
Error conditions are encoded as a negative value count (as
per the
.BR PMAPI (3)
protocols, but may be decoded using
.BR pmerr (1))
and followed by a textual description of the error.
.PP
Unless directed to another host by the
.B \-h
option,
.B pmprobe
will contact the Performance Metrics Collector Daemon
(PMCD) on the local host.
.PP
The
.B \-a
option causes
.B pmprobe
to use the specified set of archives rather than connecting to a PMCD.
The argument is a comma-separated list of names, each
of which may be the base name of an archive or the name of a directory containing
one or more archives.
The
.B \-a
and
.B \-h
options are mutually exclusive.
.PP
The \fB\-b\fR/\fB\-\-batch\fR option may be used to define the maximum size of
the group of metrics to be fetched in a single request for the
\fB\-v/\fB\-\-values\fR option.
This batching is also applied to the
.BR pmLookupName (3)
request that
.B pmprobe
calls with the list of leaf metric names, to avoid exceeding the maximum PDU length
supported by
.BR pmcd (1)
for client requests.
This can be important for
.BR pmlogconf (1),
which uses
.B pmprobe
to enumerate the set of metrics to be logged by
.BR pmlogger (1).
The default value for
.I batchsize
is 128.
This option is useful to avoid limitations on PDU request sizes
and also to stagger fetches, which may otherwise timeout if
.BR pmcd (1)
or a PMDA is slow to respond, particularly if a large
number of metrics are probed.
.PP
The
.B \-L
option causes
.B pmprobe
to use a local context to collect metrics from PMDAs on the local host
without PMCD.  Only some metrics are available in this mode.
The
.BR \-a ,
.B \-h
and
.B \-L
options are mutually exclusive.
.PP
Normally
.B pmprobe
operates on the distributed Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS),
however, if the
.B \-n
option is specified an alternative local PMNS file is loaded
from the file
.IR pmnsfile .
.PP
Other options control the output of additional information when
one or more values is available.
.TP 5
.B \-f
When used with
.B \-i
or
.B \-I
the set of instances reported will be all of those known at the
source of the performance data.  By default the set of reported
instances are those for which values are currently available, which
may be smaller than the set reported with
.BR \-f .
.TP
.B \-I
Report the external identifiers for each instance.  The literal string
.B PM_IN_NULL
is reported for singular metrics.
.TP
.B \-i
Report the internal identifiers for each instance.  The values are
in decimal and prefixed by ``?''.  As a special case, the literal
string
.B PM_IN_NULL
is reported for singular metrics.
.TP
.B \-K
When using the
.B \-L
option to fetch metrics from a local context, the
.B \-K
option may be used to control the DSO PMDAs that should be
made accessible.  The
.I spec
argument conforms to the syntax described in
.BR pmSpecLocalPMDA (3).
More than one
.B \-K
option may be used.
.TP
.B \-O
When used in conjunction with an archive source of metrics and
the
.B \-v
option the
.I time
argument defines a time origin at which the metrics should be
fetched from the archive(s).
Refer to
.BR PCPIntro (1)
for a complete description of this option, and the syntax for the
.I time
argument.
.TP
.B \-v
Report the value for each instance, as per the formatting
rules of
.BR pmPrintValue (3).
When fetching from a set of archives, only
those instances present in the first archive record for a metric will be
displayed; see also the
.B \-O
option.
.PP
The
.B \-v
option is mutually exclusive with either the
.B \-I
or
.B \-i
options.
.PP
The
.B \-V
option provides a cryptic summary of the number of messages sent
and received across the PMAPI interface.
.SH EXAMPLES
.nf
.ft CW
$ pmprobe disk.dev
.ft CW
disk.dev.read 2
disk.dev.write 2
disk.dev.total 2
disk.dev.blkread 2
disk.dev.blkwrite 2
disk.dev.blktotal 2
disk.dev.active 2
disk.dev.response 2
.sp
.ft CW
$ pmprobe \-I disk.dev.read disk.dev.write disk.all.total
.ft CW
disk.dev.read 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
disk.dev.write 2 "dks0d1" "dks0d2"
disk.all.total 1 PM_IN_NULL
.sp
.ft CW
$ pmprobe \-v pmcd.numagents pmcd.version pmcd.control.timeout
.ft CW
pmcd.numagents 1 9
pmcd.version 1 "2.0 beta-1"
pmcd.control.timeout 1 5
.sp
.ft CW
$ pmprobe \-v disk.dev.total disk.all.total
.ft CW
disk.dev.total \-1012 Unknown metric name
disk.all.total 1 4992466
.fi
.ft R
.SH FILES
.PD 0
.TP 10
.BI $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/ *
default PMNS specification files
.PD
.SH "PCP ENVIRONMENT"
Environment variables with the prefix
.B PCP_
are used to parameterize the file and directory names
used by PCP.
On each installation, the file
.I /etc/pcp.conf
contains the local values for these variables.
The
.B $PCP_CONF
variable may be used to specify an alternative
configuration file,
as described in
.BR pcp.conf (5).
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR PCPIntro (1),
.BR pmcd (1),
.BR pmdumplog (1),
.BR pminfo (1),
.BR PMAPI (3),
.BR pmErrStr (3),
.BR pmSpecLocalPMDA (3),
.BR pcp.conf (5),
.BR pcp.env (5)
and
.BR pmns (5).