pmie(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | QUICK START | EXPRESSION SYNTAX | BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS | RULESETS | SCALE FACTORS | MACROS | AUTOMATIC RESTART | EVENT MONITORING | DIFFERENCES IN HOST AND ARCHIVE MODES | SIGNALS | HOSTNAME CHANGES | BUGS | FILES | PCP ENVIRONMENT | UNIX SEE ALSO | WINDOWS SEE ALSO | SEE ALSO | USER GUIDE | COLOPHON

PMIE(1)                  General Commands Manual                 PMIE(1)

NAME         top

       pmie - inference engine for performance metrics

SYNOPSIS         top

       pmie [-bCdeFfPqvVWxXz?]  [-a archive] [-A align] [-c filename]
       [-h host] [-l logfile] [-m note] [-j stompfile] [-n pmnsfile] [-o
       format] [-O offset] [-S starttime] [-t interval] [-T endtime] [-U
       username] [-Z timezone] [filename ...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       pmie accepts a collection of arithmetic, logical, and rule
       expressions to be evaluated at specified frequencies.  The base
       data for the expressions consists of performance metrics values
       delivered in real-time from any host running the Performance
       Metrics Collection Daemon (PMCD), or using historical data from
       Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) archives.

       As well as computing arithmetic and logical values, pmie can
       execute actions (popup alarms, write system log messages, and
       launch programs) in response to specified conditions.  Such
       actions are extremely useful in detecting, monitoring and
       correcting performance related problems.

       The expressions to be evaluated are read from configuration files
       specified by one or more filename arguments.  In the absence of
       any filename, expressions are read from standard input.

       Output from pmie is directed to standard output and standard
       error as follows:

       stdout
            Expression values printed in the verbose -v mode and the
            output of print actions.

       stderr
            Error and warning messages for any syntactic or semantic
            problems during expression parsing, and any semantic or
            performance metrics availability problems during expression
            evaluation.

OPTIONS         top

       The available command line options are:

       -a archive, --archive=archive
            archive 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 written by
            pmlogger(1).  Multiple instances of the -a flag may appear
            on the command line to specify a list of sets of archives.
            In this case, it is required that only one set of archives
            be present for any one host.  Also, any explicit host names
            occurring in a pmie expression must match the host name
            recorded in one of the archive labels.  In the case of
            multiple sets of archives, timestamps recorded in the
            archives are used to ensure temporal consistency.

       -A align, --align=align
            Force the initial time window 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.

       -b, --buffer
            Output will be line buffered and standard output is attached
            to standard error.  This is most useful for background
            execution in conjunction with the -l option.  The -b option
            is always used for pmie instances launched from
            pmie_check(1).

       -c config, --config=config
            An alternative to specifying filename at the end of the
            command line.

       -C, --check
            Parse the configuration file(s) and exit before performing
            any evaluations.  Any errors in the configuration file are
            reported.

       -d, --interact
            Normally pmie would be launched as a non-interactive process
            to monitor and manage the performance of one or more hosts.
            Given the -d flag however, execution is interactive and the
            user is presented with a menu of options.  Interactive mode
            is useful mainly for debugging new expressions.

       -e, --timestamp
            When used with -V, -v or -W, this option forces timestamps
            to be reported with each expression.  The timestamps are in
            ctime(3) format, enclosed in parenthesis and appear after
            the expression name and before the expression value, e.g.
                 expr_1 (Tue Feb  6 19:55:10 2001): 12

       -f, --foreground
            If the -l option is specified and there is no -a option
            (i.e. real-time monitoring) then pmie is run as a daemon in
            the background (in all other cases foreground is the
            default).  The -f (and -F, see below) options force pmie to
            be run in the foreground, independent of any other options.

       -F, --systemd
            Like -f, the -F option runs pmie in the foreground, but also
            does some housekeeping (like create a pid file, change user
            id and notify systemd(1) when pmie has started or is
            shutting down).  This is intended for use when pmie is
            launched from systemd(1) and the daemonising has already
            been done.  The -f and -F options are mutually exclusive.

       -h host, --host=host
            By default performance data is fetched from the local host
            (in real-time mode) or the host for the first named set of
            archives on the command line (in archive mode).  The host
            argument overrides this default.  It does not override hosts
            explicitly named in the expressions being evaluated.  The
            host argument is interpreted as a connection specification
            for pmNewContext, and is later mapped to the remote pmcd's
            self-reported host name for reporting purposes.  See also
            the %h vs. %c substitutions in rule action strings below.

       -j file
            An alternative STOMP protocol configuration is loaded from
            stompfile.  If this option is not used, and the stomp action
            is used in any rule, the default location
            $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmie/config/stomp will be used.

       -l logfile, --logfile=logfile
            Standard error is sent to logfile.

       -m note, --note=note
            Used to indicate where pmie has been launched from, e.g.
            pmie_check(1) and pmie_daily(1) use -m pmie_check and this
            is used by pmie to determine if it needs to be restarted
            should the PMCD hostname change, as described in the
            HOSTNAME CHANGES section below.

       -n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
            An alternative Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS) is
            loaded from the file pmnsfile.

       -o format, --format=format
            When precessing performance data from an archive, the -o
            option may be used to specify an alternate output format
            when a rule action is executed.  See the DIFFERENCES IN HOST
            AND ARCHIVE MODES section for a description of how the
            output format may be constructed.

       -O origin, --origin=origin
            Specify the origin of the time window.  See PCPIntro(1) for
            complete description of this option.

       -P, --primary
            Identifies this as the primary pmie instance for a host.
            See the ``AUTOMATIC RESTART'' section below for further
            details.

       -q, --quiet
            Suppresses diagnostic messages that would be printed to
            standard output by default, especially the "evaluator
            exiting" message as this can confuse scripts.

       -S starttime, --start=starttime
            Specify the starttime of the time window.  See PCPIntro(1)
            for complete description of this option.

       -t interval, --interval=interval
            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).  The
            value is used to determine the sample interval for
            expressions that do not explicitly set their sample interval
            using the pmie variable delta described below.  The default
            is 10.0 seconds.

       -T endtime, --finish=endtime
            Specify the endtime of the time window.  See PCPIntro(1) for
            complete description of this option.

       -U username, --username=username
            User account under which to run pmie.  The default is the
            current user account for interactive use.  When run as a
            daemon, the unprivileged "pcp" account is used in current
            versions of PCP, but in older versions the superuser account
            ("root") was used by default.

       -v   Unless one of the verbose options -V, -v or -W appears on
            the command line, expressions are evaluated silently, the
            only output is as a result of any actions being executed.
            In the verbose mode, specified using the -v flag, the value
            of each expression is printed as it is evaluated.  The
            values are in canonical units; bytes in the dimension of
            ``space'', seconds in the dimension of ``time'' and events
            in the dimension of ``count''.  See pmLookupDesc(3) for
            details of the supported dimension and scaling mechanisms
            for performance metrics.  The verbose mode is useful in
            monitoring the value of given expressions, evaluating
            derived performance metrics, passing these values on to
            other tools for further processing and in debugging new
            expressions.

       -V, --verbose
            This option has the same effect as the -v option, except
            that the name of the host and instance (if applicable) are
            printed as well as expression values.

       -W   This option has the same effect as the -V option described
            above, except that for boolean expressions, only those names
            and values that make the expression true are printed.  These
            are the same names and values accessible to rule actions as
            the %h, %i, %c and %v bindings, as described below.

       -x, --secret-agent
            Execute in domain agent mode.  This mode is used within the
            Performance Co-Pilot product to derive values for summary
            metrics, see pmdasummary(1).  Only restricted functionality
            is available in this mode (expressions with actions may not
            be used).

       -X, --secret-applet
            Run in secret applet mode (thin client).

       -z, --hostzone
            Change the reporting timezone to the timezone of the host
            that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified
            via either the -h option or the first named set of archives
            (as described above for the -a option).

       -Z timezone, --timezone=timezone
            Change the reporting timezone to timezone in the format of
            the environment variable TZ as described in environ(7).

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

EXAMPLES         top

       The following example expressions demonstrate some of the
       capabilities of the inference engine.

       The directory $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/pmie contains a number of other
       annotated examples of pmie expressions.

       The variable delta controls expression evaluation frequency.
       Specify that subsequent expressions be evaluated once a second,
       until further notice:

            delta = 1 sec;

       If the total context switch rate exceeds 10000 per second per
       CPU, then display an alarm notifier:

            kernel.all.pswitch / hinv.ncpu > 10000 count/sec
            -> alarm "high context switch rate %v";

       If the high context switch rate is sustained for 10 consecutive
       samples, then launch top(1) in an xterm(1) window to monitor
       processes, but do this at most once every 5 minutes:

            all_sample (
                kernel.all.pswitch @0..9 > 10 Kcount/sec * hinv.ncpu
            ) -> shell 5 min "xterm -e 'top'";

       The following rules are evaluated once every 20 seconds:

            delta = 20 sec;

       If any disk is performing more than 60 I/Os per second, then
       print a message identifying the busy disk to standard output and
       launch dkvis(1):

            some_inst (
                disk.dev.total > 60 count/sec
            ) -> print "busy disks:" " %i" &
                 shell 5 min "dkvis";

       Refine the preceding rule to apply only between the hours of 9am
       and 5pm, and to require 3 of 4 consecutive samples to exceed the
       threshold before executing the action:

            $hour >= 9 && $hour <= 17 &&
            some_inst (
              75 %_sample (
                disk.dev.total @0..3 > 60 count/sec
              )
            ) -> print "disks busy for 20 sec:" " [%h]%i";

       The following two rules are evaluated once every 10 minutes:

            delta = 10 min;

       If either the / or the /usr filesystem is more than 95% full,
       display an alarm popup, but not if it has already been displayed
       during the last 4 hours:

            filesys.free #'/dev/root' /
                filesys.capacity #'/dev/root' < 0.05
            -> alarm 4 hour "root filesystem (almost) full";

            filesys.free #'/dev/usr' /
                filesys.capacity #'/dev/usr' < 0.05
            -> alarm 4 hour "/usr filesystem (almost) full";

       The following rule requires a machine that supports the lmsensors
       metrics.  If the machine environment temperature rises more than
       2 degrees over a 10 minute interval, write an entry in the system
       log:

            lmsensors.coretemp_isa.temp1 @0 - lmsensors.coretemp_isa.temp1 @1 > 2
            -> alarm "temperature rising fast" &
               syslog "machine room temperature rise alarm";

       And something interesting if you have performance problems with
       your Oracle database:

            // back to 30sec evaluations
            delta = 30 sec;
            sid = "ptg1";       # $ORACLE_SID setting
            lid = "223";        # latch ID from v$latch
            lru = "#'$sid/$lid cache buffers lru chain'";
            host = ":moomba.melbourne.sgi.com";
            gets = "oracle.latch.gets $host $lru";
            total = "oracle.latch.gets $host $lru +
                     oracle.latch.misses $host $lru +
                     oracle.latch.immisses $host $lru";

            $total > 100 && $gets / $total < 0.2
            -> alarm "high lru latch contention in database $sid";

       The following ruleset will emit exactly one message depending on
       the availability and value of the 1-minute load average.

            delta = 1 minute;
            ruleset
                 kernel.all.load #'1 minute' > 10 * hinv.ncpu ->
                     print "extreme load average %v"
            else kernel.all.load #'1 minute' > 2 * hinv.ncpu ->
                     print "moderate load average %v"
            unknown ->
                     print "load average unavailable"
            otherwise ->
                     print "load average OK"
            ;

       The following rule will emit a message when some filesystem is
       more than 75% full and is filling at a rate that if sustained
       would fill the filesystem to 100% in less than 30 minutes.

            some_inst (
                100 * filesys.used / filesys.capacity > 75 &&
                filesys.used + 30min * (rate filesys.used) > filesys.capacity
            ) -> print "filesystem will be full within 30 mins:" " %i";

       If the metric mypmda.errors counts errors then the following rule
       will emit a message if the rate of errors exceeds 1 per second
       provided the error count is less than 100.

            mypmda.errors > 1 && instant mypmda.errors < 100
            -> print "high error rate: %v";

QUICK START         top

       The pmie specification language is powerful and large.

       To expedite rapid development of pmie rules, the pmieconf(1) tool
       provides a facility for generating a pmie configuration file from
       a set of generalized pmie rules.  The supplied set of rules
       covers a wide range of performance scenarios.

       The Performance Co-Pilot User's and Administrator's Guide
       provides a detailed tutorial-style chapter covering pmie.

EXPRESSION SYNTAX         top

       This description is terse and informal.  For a more comprehensive
       description see the Performance Co-Pilot User's and
       Administrator's Guide.

       A pmie specification is a sequence of semicolon terminated
       expressions.

       Basic operators are modeled on the arithmetic, relational and
       Boolean operators of the C programming language.  Precedence
       rules are as expected, although the use of parentheses is
       encouraged to enhance readability and remove ambiguity.

       Operands are performance metric names (see PMNS(5)) and the
       normal literal constants.

       Operands involving performance metrics may produce sets of
       values, as a result of enumeration in the dimensions of hosts,
       instances and time.  Special qualifiers may appear after a
       performance metric name to define the enumeration in each
       dimension.  For example,

           kernel.percpu.cpu.user :foo :bar #cpu0 @0..2

       defines 6 values corresponding to the time spent executing in
       user mode on CPU 0 on the hosts ``foo'' and ``bar'' over the last
       3 consecutive samples.  The default interpretation in the absence
       of : (host), # (instance) and @ (time) qualifiers is all
       instances at the most recent sample time for the default source
       of PCP performance metrics.

       Host and instance names that do not follow the rules for
       variables in programming languages, i.e. alphabetic optionally
       followed by alphanumerics, should be enclosed in single quotes.

       Expression evaluation follows the law of ``least surprises''.
       Where performance metrics have the semantics of a counter, pmie
       will automatically convert to a rate based upon consecutive
       samples and the time interval between these samples.  All numeric
       expressions are evaluated in double precision, and where
       appropriate, automatically scaled into canonical units of
       ``bytes'', ``seconds'' and ``counts''.

       A rule is a special form of expression that specifies a condition
       or logical expression, a special operator (->) and actions to be
       performed when the condition is found to be true.

       The following table summarizes the basic pmie operators:

     ┌─────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
     │    Operators    │                  Explanation                   │
     ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
     │ + - * /         │ Arithmetic                                     │
     │ < <= == >= > != │ Relational (value comparison)                  │
     │ ! && ||         │ Boolean                                        │
     │ ->              │ Rule                                           │
     │ rising          │ Boolean, false to true transition              │
     │ falling         │ Boolean, true to false transition              │
     │ rate            │ Explicit rate conversion (rarely required)     │
     │ instant         │ No automatic rate conversion (rarely required) │
     └─────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

       All operators are supported for numeric-valued operands and
       expressions.  For string-valued operands, namely literal string
       constants enclosed in double quotes or metrics with a data type
       of string (PM_TYPE_STRING), only the operators == and != are
       supported.

       The rate and instant operators are the logical inverse of one
       another, so an arithmetic expression expr is equal to rate
       instant expr.  The more useful cases involve using rate with a
       metric that is not a counter to determine the rate of change over
       time or instant with a metric that is a counter to determine if
       the current value is above or below some threshold.

       Aggregate operators may be used to aggregate or summarize along
       one dimension of a set-valued expression.  The following
       aggregate operators map from a logical expression to a logical
       expression of lower dimension.

     ┌──────────────────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
     │        Operators         │    Type     │       Explanation        │
     ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
     │ some_inst                │ Existential │ True if at least one set │
     │ some_host                │             │ member is true in the    │
     │ some_sample              │             │ associated dimension     │
     ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
     │ all_inst                 │ Universal   │ True if all set members  │
     │ all_host                 │             │ are true in the          │
     │ all_sample               │             │ associated dimension     │
     ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
     │ N%_inst                  │ Percentile  │ True if at least N       │
     │ N%_host                  │             │ percent of set members   │
     │ N%_sample                │             │ are true in the          │
     │                          │             │ associated dimension     │
     └──────────────────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────────┘

       The following instantial operators may be used to filter or limit
       a set-valued logical expression, based on regular expression
       matching of instance names.  The logical expression must be a set
       involving the dimension of instances, and the regular expression
       is of the form used by egrep(1) or the Extended Regular
       Expressions of regcomp(3).

         ┌──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
         │  Operators   │               Explanation                │
         ├──────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
         │ match_inst   │ For each value of the logical expression │
         │              │ that is ``true'', the result is ``true'' │
         │              │ if the associated instance name matches  │
         │              │ the regular expression.  Otherwise the   │
         │              │ result is ``false''.                     │
         ├──────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
         │ nomatch_inst │ For each value of the logical expression │
         │              │ that is ``true'', the result is ``true'' │
         │              │ if the associated instance name does not │
         │              │ match the regular expression.  Otherwise │
         │              │ the result is ``false''.                 │
         └──────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘

       For example, the expression below will be ``true'' for disks
       attached to controllers 2 or 3 performing more than 20 operations
       per second:
            match_inst "^dks[23]d" disk.dev.total > 20;

       The following aggregate operators map from an arithmetic
       expression to an arithmetic expression of lower dimension.

      ┌──────────────────────────┬───────────┬──────────────────────────┐
      │        Operators         │   Type    │       Explanation        │
      ├──────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────┤
      │ min_inst                 │ Extrema   │ Minimum value across all │
      │ min_host                 │           │ set members in the       │
      │ min_sample               │           │ associated dimension     │
      ├──────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────┤
      │ max_inst                 │ Extrema   │ Maximum value across all │
      │ max_host                 │           │ set members in the       │
      │ max_sample               │           │ associated dimension     │
      ├──────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────┤
      │ sum_inst                 │ Aggregate │ Sum of values across all │
      │ sum_host                 │           │ set members in the       │
      │ sum_sample               │           │ associated dimension     │
      ├──────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────┤
      │ avg_inst                 │ Aggregate │ Average value across all │
      │ avg_host                 │           │ set members in the       │
      │ avg_sample               │           │ associated dimension     │
      └──────────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────────────────────┘

       The aggregate operators count_inst, count_host and count_sample
       map from a logical expression to an arithmetic expression of
       lower dimension by counting the number of set members for which
       the expression is true in the associated dimension.

       For action rules, the following actions are defined:
            ┌───────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┐
            │ Operators │              Explanation               │
            ├───────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
            │ alarm     │ Raise a visible alarm with xconfirm(1) │
            │ print     │ Display on standard output             │
            │ shell     │ Execute with sh(1)                     │
            │ stomp     │ Send a STOMP message to a JMS server   │
            │ syslog    │ Append a message to system log file    │
            └───────────┴────────────────────────────────────────┘

       Multiple actions may be separated by the & and | operators to
       specify respectively sequential execution (both actions are
       executed) and alternate execution (the second action will only be
       executed if the execution of the first action returns a non-zero
       error status.

       Arguments to actions are an optional suppression time, and then
       one or more expressions (a string is an expression in this
       context).  Strings appearing as arguments to an action may
       include the following special selectors that will be replaced at
       the time the action is executed.

       %h  Host name(s) that make the left-most top-level expression in
           the condition true.

       %c  Connection specification string(s) or files for a PCP tool to
           reach the hosts or archives that make the left-most top-level
           expression in the condition true.

       %i  Instance(s) that make the left-most top-level expression in
           the condition true.

       %v  One value from the left-most top-level expression in the
           condition for each host and instance pair that makes the
           condition true.

       Note that expansion of the special selectors is done by repeating
       the whole argument once for each unique binding to any of the
       qualifying special selectors.  For example if a rule were true
       for the host mumble with instances grunt and snort, and for host
       fumble the instance puff makes the rule true, then the action
            ...
            -> shell myscript "Warning: %h:%i busy ";
       will execute myscript with the argument string "Warning:
       mumble:grunt busy Warning: mumble:snort busy Warning: fumble:puff
       busy".

       By comparison, if the action
            ...
            -> shell myscript "Warning! busy:" " %h:%i";
       were executed under the same circumstances, then myscript would
       be executed with the argument string "Warning! busy: mumble:grunt
       mumble:snort fumble:puff".

       The semantics of the expansion of the special selectors leads to
       a common usage pattern in an action, where one argument is a
       constant (contains no special selectors) the second argument
       contains the desired special selectors with minimal separator
       characters, and an optional third argument provides a constant
       postscript (e.g. to terminate any argument quoting from the first
       argument).  If necessary post-processing (e.g. in myscript) can
       provide the necessary enumeration over each unique expansion of
       the string containing just the special selectors.

       For complex conditions, the bindings to these selectors is not
       obvious.  It is strongly recommended that pmie be used in the
       debugging mode (specify the -W command line option in particular)
       during rule development.

BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS         top

       pmie expressions that have the semantics of a Boolean, e.g.
       foo.bar > 10 or some_inst ( my.table < 0 ) are assigned the
       values true or false or unknown.  A value is unknown if one or
       more of the underlying metric values is unavailable, e.g.
       pmcd(1) on the host cannot be contacted, the metric is not in the
       PCP archive, no values are currently available, insufficient
       values have been fetched to allow a rate converted value to be
       computed or insufficient values have been fetched to instantiate
       the required number of samples in the temporal domain.

       Boolean operators follow the normal rules of Kleene logic (aka
       3-valued logic) when combining values that include unknown:
                 ┌─────────────┬───────────────────────────┐
                 │             │             B             │
                 │   A and B   ├─────────┬───────┬─────────┤
                 │             │  true   false unknown │
                 ├───┬─────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┤
                 │   │  true   true   false unknown │
                 │   ├─────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┤
                 │ A │  false  false  false false  │
                 │   ├─────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┤
                 │   │ unknown unknown false unknown │
                 └───┴─────────┴─────────┴───────┴─────────┘
                  ┌─────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
                  │             │            B             │
                  │   A or B    ├──────┬─────────┬─────────┤
                  │             │ true false  unknown │
                  ├───┬─────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┤
                  │   │  true   true true   true   │
                  │   ├─────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┤
                  │ A │  false  true false  unknown │
                  │   ├─────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┤
                  │   │ unknown true unknown unknown │
                  └───┴─────────┴──────┴─────────┴─────────┘
                            ┌─────────┬─────────┐
                            │    A    │  not A  │
                            ├─────────┼─────────┤
                            │  true   false  │
                            ├─────────┼─────────┤
                            │  false  true   │
                            ├─────────┼─────────┤
                            │ unknown unknown │
                            └─────────┴─────────┘

RULESETS         top

       The ruleset clause is used to define a set of rules and actions
       that are evaluated in order until some action is executed, at
       which point the remaining rules and actions are skipped until the
       ruleset is again scheduled for evaluation.  The keyword else is
       used to separate rules.  After one or more regular rules (with a
       predicate and an action), a ruleset may include an optional
            unknown -> action
       clause, optionally followed by a
            otherwise -> action
       clause.

       If all of the predicates in the rules evaluate to unknown and an
       unknown clause has been specified then action associated with the
       unknown clause will be executed.

       If no rule predicate is true and the unknown action is either not
       specified or not executed and an otherwise clause has been
       specified, then the action associated with the otherwise clause
       will be executed.

SCALE FACTORS         top

       Scale factors may be appended to arithmetic expressions and force
       linear scaling of the value to canonical units.  Simple scale
       factors are constructed from the keywords: nanosecond, nanosec,
       nsec, microsecond, microsec, usec, millisecond, millisec, msec,
       second, sec, minute, min, hour, byte, Kbyte, Mbyte, Gbyte, Tbyte,
       count, Kcount and Mcount, and the operator /, for example
       ``Kbytes / hour''.

MACROS         top

       Macros are defined using expressions of the form:

            name = constexpr;

       Where name follows the normal rules for variables in programming
       languages, i.e. alphabetic optionally followed by alphanumerics.
       constexpr must be a constant expression, either a string
       (enclosed in double quotes) or an arithmetic expression
       optionally followed by a scale factor.

       Macros are expanded when their name, prefixed by a dollar ($)
       appears in an expression, and macros may be nested within a
       constexpr string.

       The following reserved macro names are understood.

       minute Current minute of the hour.

       hour   Current hour of the day, in the range 0 to 23.

       day    Current day of the month, in the range 1 to 31.

       month  Current month of the year, in the range 0 (January) to 11
              (December).

       year   Current year.

       day_of_week
              Current day of the week, in the range 0 (Sunday) to 6
              (Saturday).

       delta  Sample interval in effect for this expression.

       Dates and times are presented in the reporting time zone (see
       description of -Z and -z command line options above).

AUTOMATIC RESTART         top

       It is often useful for pmie processes to be started and stopped
       when the local host is booted or shutdown, or when they have been
       detected as no longer running (when they have unexpectedly exited
       for some reason).  Refer to pmie_check(1) for details on
       automating this process.

       Optionally, each system running pmcd(1) may also be configured to
       run a ``primary'' pmie instance.  This pmie instance is launched
       by $PCP_RC_DIR/pmie, and is affected by the files
       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmie/control, $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmie/control.d
       (use chkconfig(8), systemctl(1) or similar platform-specific
       commands to activate or disable the primary pmie instance) and
       $PCP_VAR_DIR/config/pmie/config.default (the default initial
       configuration file for the primary pmie).

       The primary pmie instance is identified by the -P option.  There
       may be at most one ``primary'' pmie instance on each system.  The
       primary pmie instance (if any) must be running on the same host
       as the pmcd(1) to which it connects (if any), so the -h and -P
       options are mutually exclusive.

EVENT MONITORING         top

       It is common for production systems to be monitored in a central
       location.  Traditionally on UNIX systems this has been performed
       by the system log facilities - see logger(1), and syslogd(1).  On
       Windows, communication with the system event log is handled by
       pcp-eventlog(1).

       pmie fits into this model when rules use the syslog action.  Note
       that if the action string begins with -p (priority) and/or -t
       (tag) then these are extracted from the string and treated in the
       same way as in logger(1) and pcp-eventlog(1).

       However, it is common to have other event monitoring frameworks
       also, into which you may wish to incorporate performance events
       from pmie.  You can often use the shell action to send events to
       these frameworks, as they usually provide their a program for
       injecting events into the framework from external sources.

       A final option is use of the stomp (Streaming Text Oriented
       Messaging Protocol) action, which allows pmie to connect to a
       central JMS (Java Messaging System) server and send events to the
       PMIE topic.  Tools can be written to extract these text messages
       and present them to operations people (via desktop popup windows,
       etc).  Use of the stomp action requires a stomp configuration
       file to be setup, which specifies the location of the JMS server
       host, port number, and username/password.

       The format of this file is as follows:

            host=messages.sgi.com   # this is the JMS server (required)
            port=61616              # and its listening here (required)
            timeout=2               # seconds to wait for server (optional)
            username=joe            # (required)
            password=j03ST0MP       # (required)
            topic=PMIE              # JMS topic for pmie messages (optional)

       The timeout value specifies the time (in seconds) that pmie
       should wait for acknowledgements from the JMS server after
       sending a message (as required by the STOMP protocol).  Note that
       on startup, pmie will wait indefinitely for a connection, and
       will not begin rule evaluation until that initial connection has
       been established.  Should the connection to the JMS server be
       lost at any time while pmie is running, pmie will attempt to
       reconnect on each subsequent truthful evaluation of a rule with a
       stomp action, but not more than once per minute.  This is to
       avoid contributing to network congestion.  In this situation,
       where the STOMP connection to the JMS server has been severed,
       the stomp action will return a non-zero error value.

DIFFERENCES IN HOST AND ARCHIVE MODES         top

       When running in host mode, the delta interval for each rule
       determines a real-time delay between rule evaluation, so pmie
       spends most if its time sleeping and waiting for the next
       scheduled rule evaluation.

       When running in archive mode, pmie uses the delta interval for
       each rule to determine how frequently the rules are evaluated
       against the archive data, but unlike host mode there are no real-
       time delays as the archive is ``replayed'' as fast as possible.

       In archive mode when a rule predicate evaluates true then the
       action is modified, so that rather than posting to syslog or
       raising a visible alarm or running a shell command or sending a
       stomp message, pmie prints the name of the action, the timestamp
       from the archive when the rule predicate triggering the action
       was true and all of the arguments that would have been passed to
       the real action in host mode.

       For example, given the rule:
            delta = 10 sec;
            kernel.all.nprocs > 10 * hinv.ncpu -> print "lotsaprocs:" "
            %v";
       when run against an archive, the output appears as:
            print Mon Sep  4 00:10:21 2017: lotsaprocs: 1292
            print Mon Sep  4 00:10:31 2017: lotsaprocs: 1294
            print Mon Sep  4 00:10:41 2017: lotsaprocs: 1291
            ...

       The rationale is that the context in which the action would have
       been executed (in host mode) was at a time in the past and the
       possibly on a different host (if the archive was collected from
       one host, but pmie is being run on a different host).  So
       flooding syslog with misleading messages or an avalanche visual
       alarms or a lot of STOMP messages or a shell command that might
       not even work on the host where pmie is being run, are all
       examples of ``badness'' to be avoided.  Rather the output is text
       in a regular format suitable for post-processing with a range of
       filters and performance analysis tools.

       The output format can be changed using the -o option which
       consists of literal characters with the following embedded
       ``meta-field'' tokens:

       %a  The name of the action, e.g.  print, syslog, etc.

       %d  The date and time in ctime(3) format when the action would
           have been executed.

       %f  The name of the configuration file containing the action
           being executed, else <stdin> if the rules were read from
           standard input.

       %l  The (approximate) line number in the configuration file for
           the action being executed.

       %m  The message component of the action.

       %u  The date and time when the action would have been executed in
           extended ctime(3) format with microsecond precision for the
           time.

       %%  A literal percent character.

       The default output format is equivalent to a format of %a %d: %m.

SIGNALS         top

       If pmie is sent a SIGHUP signal, the logfile will be closed,
       unlinked and re-opened.  This is used by pmie_daily(1) to achieve
       nightly log rotation.

       Most of the time pmie is sleeping, waiting until the next set of
       rules needs to be evaluated.  Sending pmie a SIGUSR1 signal will
       cause the details for the next set of rules to be dumped on
       logfile, including how long the current sleep is and how much
       time remains.  The scheduling of rules is not changed by this
       action.

HOSTNAME CHANGES         top

       The hostname of the PMCD that is providing metrics to pmie is
       used in several ways.

       PMCD's hostname is user internally to provide a value for the %h
       substitutions in rule action strings.

       For pmie instances using a local PMCD that are launched and
       managed by pmie_check(1) and pmie_daily(1), (or the systemd(1) or
       cron(8) services that use these scripts), the local hostname may
       also be used to construct the name of a directory where the pmie
       logs for one host are stored, e.g. $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmie/<hostname>.

       The hostname of the PMCD host may change during boot time when
       the system transitions from a temporary hostname to a persistent
       hostname, or by explicit administrative action anytime after the
       system has been booted.  When this happens, pmie may need to take
       special action, specifically if the pmie instance was launched
       from pmie_check(1) or pmie_daily(1), then pmie must exit.  Under
       normal circumstances systemd(1) or cron(8) will launch a new pmie
       shortly thereafter, and this new pmie instance will be operating
       in the context of the new hostname for the host where PMCD is
       running.

BUGS         top

       The lexical scanner and parser will attempt to recover after an
       error in the input expressions.  Parsing resumes after skipping
       input up to the next semi-colon (;), however during this skipping
       process the scanner is ignorant of comments and strings, so an
       embedded semi-colon may cause parsing to resume at an unexpected
       place.  This behavior is largely benign, as until the initial
       syntax error is corrected, pmie will not attempt any expression
       evaluation.

FILES         top

       $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/pmie/*
            annotated example rules

       $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
            default PMNS specification files

       $PCP_TMP_DIR/pmie
            pmie maintains files in this directory to identify the
            running pmie instances and to export runtime information
            about each instance - this data forms the basis of the
            pmcd.pmie performance metrics

       $PCP_PMIECONTROL_PATH
            the default set of pmie instances to start at boot time -
            refer to pmie_check(1) for details

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).

       When executing shell actions, pmie overrides two variables - IFS
       and PATH - in the environment of the child process.  IFS is set
       to "\t\n".  The PATH is set to a combination of a default path
       for all platforms ("/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin") and several
       configurable components.  These are (in this order):
       $PCP_BIN_DIR, $PCP_BINADM_DIR and $PCP_PLATFORM_PATHS.

       When executing popup alarm actions, pmie will use the value of
       $PCP_XCONFIRM_PROG as the visual notification program to run.
       This is typically set to pmconfirm(1), a cross-platform dialog
       box.

UNIX SEE ALSO         top

       logger(1).

WINDOWS SEE ALSO         top

       pcp-eventlog(1).

SEE ALSO         top

       PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmconfirm(1), pmie_check(1), pmieconf(1),
       pmie_daily(1), pminfo(1), pmlogdump(1), pmlogger(1), pmval(1),
       systemd(1), ctime(3), PMAPI(3), pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and
       PMNS(5).

USER GUIDE         top

       For a more complete description of the pmie language, refer to
       the Performance Co-Pilot Users and Administrators Guide.  This is
       available online from:
           https://pcp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/UAG/PerformanceMetricsInferenceEngine.html 

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                           PMIE(1)

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