NAME¶
chkhelp - check performance metrics help text files
SYNOPSIS¶
$PCP_BINADM_DIR/chkhelp [
-eHiOp] [
-n pmnsfile] [
-v version]
helpfile [
metricname ...]
DESCRIPTION¶
chkhelp checks the consistency of Performance Co-Pilot help text files
generated by
newhelp(1) and used by Performance Metric Domain Agents
(PMDAs). The checking involves scanning the files, and optionally displaying
selected entries.
The files
helpfile.dir and
helpfile.pag are created
by
newhelp(1), and are assumed to already exist.
Without any options or
metricname arguments,
chkhelp silently
verifies the structural integrity of the help files.
If any
metricname arguments are specified, then the help entries for only
the corresponding metrics will be processed.
If no
metricname arguments are specified, then at least one of the
options
-i or
-p must be given. The
-i option causes
entries for all instance domains to be processed (ignoring entries for
performance metrics). The
-p option causes entries for all metrics to
be displayed (ignoring entries for instance domains).
When metric entries are to be processed (via either the
metricname
arguments or the
-p option or the
-i option), the
-O and
-H options request the display of the one-line and verbose help text
respectively. The default is
-O.
Although historically there have been multiple help text file formats, the only
format currently supported using the
-v option is
version 2, and
this is the default if no
-v flag is provided.
Normally
chkhelp operates on the default Performance Metrics Namespace
(PMNS), however if the
-n option is specified an alternative namespace
is loaded from the file
pmnsfile.
The
-e option provides an existence check where all of the specified
metrics from the PMNS (note, not from
helpfile) are scanned, and only
the names of the metrics for which
no help text exists are reported.
The
-e option is mutually exclusive with the
-i and/or
-p
options.
PCP ENVIRONMENT¶
Environment variables with the prefix
PCP_ are used to parameterize the
file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file
/etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The
$PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration
file, as described in
pcp.conf(5).
SEE ALSO¶
newhelp(1),
PMAPI(3),
pmLookupInDomText(3),
pmLookupText(3),
pcp.conf(5) and
pcp.env(5).
DIAGNOSTICS¶
There are all sorts of reasons a help database may be inconsistent, the most
likely is that a performance metric in the database is not defined in the
loaded PMNS.