'\"macro stdmacro
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.TH PMDAATTRIBUTE 3 "PCP" "Performance Co-Pilot"
.SH NAME
\f3pmdaAttribute\f1 \- informs a PMDA about client connection attributes
.SH "C SYNOPSIS"
.ft 3
#include <pcp/pmapi.h>
.br
#include <pcp/pmda.h>
.sp
int pmdaAttribute(int \fIcontext\fP, int \fIkey\fP, char *\fIvalue\fP, int \fIlength\fP, pmdaExt *\fIpmda\fP);
.sp
cc ... \-lpcp_pmda \-lpcp
.ft 1
.SH DESCRIPTION
As part of the Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) API (see
.BR PMDA (3)),
.B pmdaAttribute
is the generic callback for responding to client connection attributes.
These attributes include client credential information, such as user ID
and group ID.
.PP
A PMDA that supports connection attributes will provide a private
.B pmdaAttribute
callback
by assignment to
.I version.six.attribute
of the
.I pmdaInterface
structure, and implement custom logic for any of the attribute
.IR key \-\c
.I value
pairs of interest to it.
.PP
All attributes are associated with a specific client context, and these
can be uniquely identified using the
.I ctx
first argument.
The PMDA should track client connections, and disconnections using the
.BR pmdaSetEndContextCallBack (3)
interface, as a result.
The
.BR pmdaGetContext (3)
interface may be particularly helpful also.
.PP
All attributes are passed as
.IR key \-\c
.I value
pairs and the
.I value
is always passed as a null-terminated string of given
.IR length .
This includes numeric attributes like the user ID.
.PP
The most commonly used attributes would be PCP_ATTR_USERID and PCP_ATTR_GROUPID
but others may also be optionally passed (such as PCP_ATTR_USERNAME) if they are
available.
Some attributes will be consumed by
.B pmcd
and never through passed to PMDAs, such as PCP_ATTR_PASSWORD.
A complete list of all possible attributes can be found in the headers listed
above, all are prefixed by PCP_ATTR.
.SH CAVEAT
The PMDA must be using
.B PMDA_PROTOCOL_6
or later, as specified in the call to
.BR pmdaDSO (3)
or
.BR pmdaDaemon (3).
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
.B pmdaAttribute
should return either zero on success, or a negative return code
to indicate an error in handling the attribute.
This return code cannot be used to indicate a client should be
disallowed access \- such functionality must be performed by the agent in
response to callbacks for the client in question (using PM_ERR_PERMISSION
for those specific callbacks, for that specific client.
In other words, errors will be be passed to PMCD but there is no guarantee
made that the error will be return to the client and result in termination
of the client, for example.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR PMAPI (3),
.BR PMDA (3),
.BR pmdaDaemon (3),
.BR pmdaDSO (3),
.BR pmdaMain (3)
and
.BR pmdaGetContext (3).