pmproxy(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | STARTING AND STOPPING PMPROXY | DIAGNOSTICS | FILES | ENVIRONMENT | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PMPROXY(1)               General Commands Manual              PMPROXY(1)

NAME         top

       pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector and querying

SYNOPSIS         top

       pmproxy [-AdfFt?]  [-c conffile] [-h host[,host ...]  [-i
       ipaddress] [-l logfile] [-L bytes] [-p port[,port ...]  [-r
       port[,port ...]  [-s sockname] [-U username] [-x outfile]

DESCRIPTION         top

       pmproxy acts as a protocol proxy, allowing Performance Co-Pilot
       (PCP) monitoring clients to connect to one or more pmcd(1) and/or
       redis-server(1) instances via pmproxy.

       In its default mode of operation pmproxy provides the REST API
       for PCP services (see PMWEBAPI(3) for details).  This includes
       provision of an Open Metrics - https://openmetrics.io  - text
       interface for PCP metrics at /metrics, realtime access to PCP
       metrics through the /pmapi interfaces, and access to the fast,
       scalable PCP time series query capabilities offered in
       conjunction with a redis-server(1) (see pmseries(1) for details)
       via the /query REST interfaces.

       pmproxy can be deployed in a firewall domain, or on a cluster
       ``head'' node where the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the
       hosts where pmcd and/or redis-server are running may be unknown
       to the PCP monitoring clients, but where the IP address of the
       host running pmproxy is known to these clients.  Similarly, the
       clients may have network connectivity only to the host where
       pmproxy is running, while there is network connectivity from that
       host to the hosts of interest where pmcd and/or redis-server are
       running.

       The behaviour of the PCP monitoring clients is controlled by
       either the PMPROXY_HOST environment variable or through the
       extended hostname specification (see PCPIntro(1) for details).
       If neither of these mechanisms is used, clients will make their
       PMAPI(3) connections directly to pmcd.  If the proxy hostname
       syntax is used or PMPROXY_HOST is set, then this should be the
       hostname or IP address of the system where pmproxy is running,
       and the clients will connect to pmcd or redis-server indirectly
       through the protocol proxy services of pmproxy.

OPTIONS         top

       The available command line options are:

       -A   Disable service advertisement.  By default, pmproxy will
            advertise its presence on the network using any available
            mechanisms (such as Avahi/DNS-SD), assisting remote
            monitoring tools with finding it.  These mechanisms are
            disabled with this option.

       -c conffile, --config=conffile
            Specify the path to an optional configuration conffile, with
            format as described in the ``CONFIGURATION'' section.  This
            option implies pmproxy is running in timeseries mode.

       -d, --deprecated
            By default pmproxy prefers to run in the new timeseries
            mode, providing REST APIs, asynchronous network I/O,
            scalable time series, and secure connections using OpenSSL.
            However, legacy deployments may wish to use the original
            synchronous pmproxy implementation using libpcp networking;
            this can be achieved using this option.  Note that the -d
            and -t options are mutually exclusive.

       -f, --foreground
            By default pmproxy is started as a daemon.  The -f option
            indicates that it should run in the foreground.  This is
            most useful when trying to diagnose problems with
            establishing connections.

       -F, --systemd
            Like -f, the -F option runs pmproxy in the foreground, but
            also does some housekeeping (like create a ``pid'' file and
            change user id).  This is intended for use when pmproxy is
            launched from systemd(1) and the daemonizing has already
            been done by systemd(1) and does not need to be done again
            by pmproxy, which is the case when neither -f nor -F is
            specified.

            At most one of -f and -F may be specified.

       -h host, --redishost=host
            Specify an alternate Redis host to connect to for time
            series querying, overriding any configuration file settings.
            This option implies pmproxy is running in timeseries mode.

       -i ipaddress, --interface=ipaddress
            This option is usually only used on hosts with more than one
            network interface (very common for firewall and ``head''
            node hosts where pmproxy is likely to be deployed to
            arbitrate access to an internal network).  If no -i options
            are specified pmproxy accepts PCP client connections on any
            of its host's IP addresses.  The -i option is used to
            specify explicitly an IP address that PCP client connections
            should be accepted on.  ipaddress should be in the standard
            dotted form (e.g. 100.23.45.6).  The -i option may be used
            multiple times to define a list of IP addresses.  When one
            or more -i options is specified, attempted connections made
            on any other IP addresses will be refused.

       -l logfile, --log=logfile
            By default a log file named pmproxy.log is written in the
            current directory.  The -l option causes the log file to be
            written to a given logfile instead of the default.  If this
            logfile cannot be created or is not writable, output is
            written to the standard error instead.

       -L bytes
            PDUs received by pmproxy from PCP monitoring clients are
            restricted to a maximum size of 65536 bytes by default to
            defend against Denial of Service attacks.  The -L option may
            be used to change the maximum incoming PDU size.

       -p port, --port=port
            Specify an alternate port number to listen on for client
            connections.  The default value is 44322.

       -r port, --redisport=port
            Specify an alternate Redis port number to connect to for
            time series querying, overriding any configuration file
            settings.  This option implies pmproxy is running in
            timeseries mode.

       -s sockname, --socket=sockname
            Specify the path to a local unix domain socket (for
            platforms supporting this socket family only).  The default
            value is $PCP_RUN_DIR/pmproxy.socket.  This option implies
            pmproxy is running in timeseries mode.

       -t, --timeseries
            Operate in automatic archive timeseries discovery mode.
            This mode of operation will enable the PMWEBAPI(3) REST
            APIs, dynamiclly and automatically detect active system
            archives being written by pmlogger(1) and import them into a
            redis-server(1), for fast, scalable time series querying
            described in pmseries(1).  Note that in this mode of
            operation, pmproxy only "log-tails" and ingests actively
            growing archives, e.g. as written by one or more pmlogger(1)
            instances.  When an archive is first discovered (usually but
            not limited to pmproxy startup), all metadata is loaded and
            sent to the configured redis-server(1) however note that
            only new archive metric value data from the tail end of each
            archive is ingested.  Compressed archives never grow and so
            are ignored.  See the --load option to pmseries(1) for a
            supported mechanism for manually loading all of the metric
            value data from previously collected (inactive) archives,
            whether compressed or not.  It would be normal, though not
            mandated, for a set of archives being manually loaded to
            cover the same time period, e.g. archive data for a
            particular week for one or more hosts in the same data-
            centre.

       -U username, --username=username
            Assume the identity of the given username before starting to
            accept incoming packets from PCP monitoring clients.

       -x outfile
            Before the pmproxy logfile can be opened, pmproxy may
            encounter a fatal error which prevents it from starting.  By
            default the output describing this error is sent to /dev/tty
            but it may redirected to outfile.

       -?, --help
            Display usage message and exit.

CONFIGURATION         top

       When running in the timeseries mode of operation, runtime
       configuration is relatively complex and typically handled via the
       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.conf file.  This file is in the
       common ``ini'' format, with section headers and individual
       variables and values with each section.  The configuration file
       installed as part of PCP documents every available section and
       option.

       At a high level, the [pmproxy] section can be used to explicitly
       enable or disable each of the different protocols.

       The [redis] section allows connection information for one or more
       backing redis-server processes to be configured (hostnames and
       ports).  Note to access multiple (scalable) Redis servers, the
       servers variable in this section can be a comma-separated list of
       hostname:port pairs.  Alternatively, it can be a single redis-
       server host that will be queried using the "CLUSTER INFO" command
       to automatically configure multiple backing hosts, described at
       https://redis.io/topics/cluster-spec .

       In earlier versions of PCP (before 6) an alternative
       configuration setting section was used for this purpose - Redis
       servers were specified in the [pmseries] section and this is
       still accepted as a fallback for backwards compatibility.

STARTING AND STOPPING PMPROXY         top

       Normally, pmproxy is started automatically at boot time and
       stopped when the system is being brought down.  Under certain
       circumstances it is necessary to start or stop pmproxy manually.
       To do this one must become superuser and type

       # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy start

       to start pmproxy, or

       # $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy stop

       to stop pmproxy.  Starting pmproxy when it is already running is
       the same as stopping it and then starting it again.

       Normally pmproxy listens for PCP client connections on TCP/IP
       port number 44322 (as well as 44323 with timeseries enabled)
       registered at https://www.iana.org/ .  Either the environment
       variable PMPROXY_PORT or the -p command line option may be used
       to specify alternative port number(s) when pmproxy is started; in
       each case, the specification is a comma-separated list of one or
       more numerical port numbers.  Should both methods be used or
       multiple -p options appear on the command line, pmproxy will
       listen on the union of the set of ports specified via all -p
       options and the PMPROXY_PORT environment variable.  If non-
       default ports are used with pmproxy care should be taken to
       ensure that PMPROXY_PORT is also set in the environment of any
       client application that will connect to pmproxy, or that the
       extended host specification syntax is used (see PCPIntro(1) for
       details).

DIAGNOSTICS         top

       If pmproxy is already running the message "Error:
       OpenRequestSocket bind: Address already in use" will appear.
       This may also appear if pmproxy was shutdown with an outstanding
       request from a client.  In this case, a request socket has been
       left in the TIME_WAIT state and until the system closes it down
       (after some timeout period) it will not be possible to run
       pmproxy.

       In addition to the standard PCP debugging options, see pmdbg(1),
       pmproxy currently supports the debugging option context for
       tracing client connections and disconnections.

FILES         top

       $PCP_PMPROXYOPTIONS_PATH
            command line options for pmproxy when launched from
            $PCP_RC_DIR/pmproxy All the command line option lines should
            start with a hyphen as the first character.

       $PCP_SYSCONFIG_DIR/pmproxy
            Environment variables that will be set when pmproxy
            executes.  Only settings of the form
            "PMPROXY_VARIABLE=value" will be honoured.

       ./pmproxy.log
            (or $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmproxy/pmproxy.log when started
            automatically)
            All messages and diagnostics are directed here

       /etc/pki/tls
            default OpenSSL certificate database directory, optionally
            used for Secure Socket Layer connection in timeseries mode
            of operation.  These certificates can be created and queried
            using the openssl tool, amongst others.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       In addition to the PCP environment variables described in the PCP
       ENVIRONMENT section below, there are several environment
       variables that influence the interactions between a PCP
       monitoring client, pmproxy and pmcd.

       PMCD_PORT
              For the PCP monitoring client this (or the default port
              number) is passed to pmproxy and used to connect to pmcd.
              In the environment of pmproxy PMCD_PORT is not used.

       PMPROXY_HOST
              For the PCP monitoring client this is the hostname or IP
              address of the host where pmproxy is running.  In recent
              versions of PCP (since version 3) this has been superseded
              by the extended hostname syntax (see PCPIntro(1) for
              details).

       PMPROXY_PORT
              For the PCP monitoring client this is the port on which
              pmproxy will accept connections.  The default is 44322, as
              well as 44323 with timeseries enabled.

       PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, PMCD_RECONNECT_TIMEOUT and
       PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
              (see PCPIntro(1)) For the PCP monitoring client, setting
              these environment variables will modify the timeouts used
              for interactions between the client and pmproxy
              (independent of which pmcd is being used).  For pmproxy
              these same environment variables control the timeouts
              between pmproxy and all pmcd(1) instances (independent of
              which monitoring client is involved).

       If set to the value 1, the PMPROXY_LOCAL environment variable
       will cause pmproxy to run in a localhost-only mode of operation,
       where it binds only to the loopback interface.

       The PMPROXY_MAXPENDING variable can be set to indicate the
       maximum length to which the queue of pending client connections
       may grow.

PCP ENVIRONMENT         top

       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).

       For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see
       pmGetOptions(3).

SEE ALSO         top

       PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdbg(1), pmlogger(1), pmseries(1),
       redis-server(1), PMAPI(3), PMWEBAPI(3), pmGetOptions(3),
       pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the PCP (Performance Co-Pilot) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.pcp.io/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, send it to pcp@groups.io.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/performancecopilot/pcp.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2023-12-16.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Performance Co-Pilot               PCP                        PMPROXY(1)

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