pmclient(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FILES | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PMCLIENT(1)              General Commands Manual             PMCLIENT(1)

NAME         top

       pmclient, pmclient_fg - a simple performance metrics client

SYNOPSIS         top

       pmclient [-PVz?]  [-a archive] [-A align] [-h host] [-n pmnsfile]
       [-O origin] [-s samples] [-S starttime] [-t interval] [-T
       endtime] [-Z timezone]

       pmclient_fg ...

DESCRIPTION         top

       pmclient and pmclient_fg are simple clients that use the
       Performance Metrics Application Programming Interface (PMAPI) to
       report some high-level system performance metrics.

       The real value of these tools is as sample clients using the
       PMAPI(3), interfaces and to this end the source code is included
       with the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) package (see PCPIntro(1)),
       and is typically installed in /usr/share/pcp/demos/pmclient.

       The pmclient_fg program differs to pmclient in that it uses the
       fetchgroup API extension to the PMAPI, see pmFetchGroup(3).

       Normally pmclient operates on the distributed Performance Metrics
       Name Space (PMNS), however if the -n option is specified an
       alternative local PMNS is loaded from the file pmnsfile.

       Unless directed to another host by the -h option, or to an
       archive by the -a option, pmclient will contact the Performance
       Metrics Collector Daemon (PMCD) on the local host to obtain the
       required information.  The argument to -a 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
       -a and -h options are mutually exclusive.

       By default, pmclient reports the time of day according to the
       local timezone on the system where pmclient is run.  The -Z
       option changes the timezone to timezone in the format of the
       environment variable TZ as described in environ(7).  The -z
       option changes the timezone to the local timezone at the host
       that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified via
       either the -h or -a options.

       The output from pmclient is directed to standard output, and
       lists

       +  Aggregate CPU utilization, in the range 0 to 1.

       +  If the system has more than 1 CPU, the ordinal number of the
          busiest CPU, in the range 0 to ...

       +  If the system has more than 1 CPU, the CPU utilization for the
          busiest CPU.

       +  Real free memory in Mbytes.

       +  Aggregate physical disk I/O operations per second (IOPS).

       +  Load average over the last 1 minute and over the last 15
          minutes.

OPTIONS         top

       The available command line options are:

       -a archive, --archive=archive
            Performance metric values are retrieved from the set of
            Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) archive files identified by the
            archive argument, which 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.

       -A align, --align=align
            Force the initial sample to be aligned on the boundary of a
            natural time unit align.  Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a
            complete description of the syntax for align.

       -h host, --host=host
            Fetch performance metrics from pmcd(1) on host, rather than
            from the default localhost.

       -n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
            Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS(5))
            from the file pmnsfile.

       -O origin, --origin=origin
            When reporting archived metrics, start reporting at origin
            within the time window (see -S and -T).  Refer to
            PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the syntax for
            origin.

       -P, --pause
            The default behavior for replaying a set of archives, is to
            replay at full speed.  The -P option may be used in
            conjunction with a set of archives, to request that the
            prevailing real-time delay be applied between samples (see
            -t) to effect a pause.

       -s samples, --samples=samples
            The samples argument defines the number of samples to be
            retrieved and reported.  If samples is 0 or -s is not
            specified, pmclient will sample and report continuously (in
            real time mode) or until the end of the set of PCP archives
            (in archive mode).

       -S starttime, --start=starttime
            The -S option may be used in conjunction with a set of
            archives to request that display start at the starttime from
            the start of the archive(s).  Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a
            complete description of the syntax for starttime.

       -t interval, --interval=interval
            Set the reporting interval to something other than the
            default 5 seconds.  The interval argument follows the syntax
            described in PCPIntro(1), and in the simplest form may be an
            unsigned integer (the implied units in this case are
            seconds).

       -T endtime, --finish=endtime
            When reporting archived metrics, the report will be
            restricted to those records logged before or at endtime.
            Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the
            syntax for endtime.

       -V, --version
            Display version number and exit.

       -z, --hostzone
            Use the local timezone of the host that is the source of the
            performance metrics, as identified by either the -h or the
            -a options.  The default is to use the timezone of the local
            host.

       -Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
            Use timezone for the date and time.  Timezone is in the
            format of the environment variable TZ as described in
            environ(7).

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

FILES         top

       $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/pmclient
            source code, documentation, configuration files and Makefile
            when the PCP development package is installed

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), pmchart(1), pmdumptext(1), pmgenmap(1),
       pminfo(1), pmrep(1), pmstat(1), pmval(1), PMAPI(3),
       pmFetchGroup(3), pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and PMNS(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 2024-06-14.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2024-06-14.)  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                       PMCLIENT(1)

Pages that refer to this page: pmstat(1)