pcp-dstat(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILE FORMAT | EXAMPLES | FILES | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PCP-DSTAT(5)               File Formats Manual              PCP-DSTAT(5)

NAME         top

       pcp-dstat - pcp-dstat configuration file

DESCRIPTION         top

       pcp-dstat is a customizable performance metrics reporting tool.
       It has a ``plugin'' architecture, where a set of pre-defined
       plugins offer small sets of columnar metric reports, and pcp-
       dstat command line options select which of these plugins are used
       in the generated report.

       Each plugin is defined in a section of a configuration file.  A
       typical installation will provide many configuration files, and
       often multiple sections (plugins) within each file.

       Configuration files are read from both a system directory and the
       users home directory ($PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/dstat and
       $HOME/.pcp/dstat).

FILE FORMAT         top

       The configuration files have an ini-style syntax consisting of
       sections (plugins) and options within sections.  A section begins
       with the name of the plugin in square brackets and continues
       until the next section begins.  An example section with two
       options follows:

           [plugin]
           option = value
           metric.option = value2

       A line comment starts with a hash sign (``#'') or a semicolon
       (``;'').  Inline comments are not supported.

       There are some options which apply to the plugin as a whole, and
       anything else is considered to be a column definition.  Column
       definitions map directly to individual PCP metrics.

   The [plugin] options
       label (string)
           The overall title to be used for this plugin.  In the special
           case of metrics with instances being reported as a group (see
           grouptype below) this string may contain the %I pattern,
           which will be substituted with the name of the instance -
           refer to the cpu, disk, net and int(errupts) plugins for
           examples of this special syntax.  Undefined by default, set
           automatically to the section (plugin) name.

       width (integer)
           The column width used for metrics in this plugin.  The
           default is 5.

       precision (integer)
           The maximum precision to be used when reporting columns in
           floating point for this plugin.  Undefined by default, set
           automatically based on width.

       printtype (character)
           Indicates the reporting style for metric values in this
           plugin.  Possible settings are d(ecimal), f(loat), p(ercent),
           s(tring), b(its), t(ime).  By default a setting will be used
           based on the metric type and semantic - refer to PMAPI(3) for
           further details of PCP metric metadata.

       colorstep (integer)
           Indicates a ``step'' at which the next color will be
           transitioned to, when reporting metric values.  As metric
           values change on each sample, the colorstep is used to
           determine the increments beyond which a new color is to be
           selected.  Defaults to 1000.

       grouptype (integer)
           For plugins with metrics sharing the same instance domain, it
           is possible to request more complex grouping behaviour.  The
           default behaviour is to not use instance grouping, and to
           report each instance of the metric in a separate column (the
           load plugin is an example of this, using the kernel.all.load
           metric).

           The grouping can be set at three distinct levels - 1, 2, 3 or
           4.  Level 1 displays instances of metrics only (no totals) -
           this is the equivalent of using the --cpu plugin on the pcp-
           dstat command line with specific processors' utilization
           displayed, e.g. displaying CPU numbers 4, 5 and 12 (-C
           4,5,12).  Level 2 displays the total column - the sum of all
           instances for the specified metric(s) in this plugin.  Level
           3 is a combination of both modes, for example using the pcp-
           dstat --cpu plugin with options -C 4,5,12,total.  Level 4 is
           a top-like mode, where a special "top" expression is used to
           rank all instances - the top-most (largest) value will be
           displayed.

       instances (comma-separated-value string)
           Defines the instances to be reported for the metric.  The
           default is to report all instances for set-values metrics.

       cullinsts (regex pattern)
           An optional regular expression that can be used to cull
           metric instances from the aggregation ('total') in generated
           reports.  For example it is common to exclude loopback
           devices from the network interface reports, this is achieved
           using this option.  Default is to report on all instances (no
           culling).

   The [plugin] metrics
       Each plugin must have at least one metric associated with it.
       Any key that is not one of the above global plugin options is
       considered to be a metric specification or a metric option.
       These keys define the metrics and their report formatting.

       First and foremost, each column is typically represented by an
       individual metric (if the metric is set-valued - i.e. it has
       instances - this will result in multiple columns).  This is
       specified by a new key (column) being set to a metric
       specification.  The column (key) name is an arbitrary word using
       alphabetic characters.  The metric specification is any PCP
       metric name or derived metric specification, allowing basic
       arithmetic calculations to be used to form this individual
       column.  The derived metric syntax is described on the
       pmRegisterDerived(3) manual page.

       Some examples of both forms of metric specification are given
       below in the ``EXAMPLES'' section.  Once a column has been
       associated with a metric, other options specific to that column
       can be set using a dot-separated syntax.

       Metric options

       metric.label
           The subtitle to be used for the reported values of this
           metric.  The default label is the column name from the
           configuration file.

           When set-valued PCP metrics (i.e. with instances) are being
           used, it is often convenient to specify either the instance
           number or instance name in the heading.  This is achieved
           using format specifiers - ``%d'' or ``%i'' for instance
           numbers (e.g. replaced by ``6'' for the sixth processor), and
           ``%s'' or ``%I'' for instance names (e.g. replaced by
           ``eth0'' for the ethernet interface).  Available instance
           names for any metric can be discovered via the pminfo(1) or
           pmprobe(1) commands.

       metric.width
           The column width to be used when reporting values for this
           metric.

       metric.unit (string)
           Defines the unit/scale conversion for the metric.  Needs to
           be dimension-compatible and is used with non-string metrics.
           For allowed values, see pmrep(1).

       metric.type (string)
           If set to raw rate conversion for the metric will be
           disabled.

       metric.precision (integer)
           Defines precision for floating point values.

       metric.limit (string)
           Defines value limit filter for numeric metric values.

EXAMPLES         top

       The following example defines a virtual filesystem plugin, with
       two columns, defined using three PCP metrics - vfs.files.count,
       vfs.inodes.count and vfs.inodes.free.  The inodes metrics are
       combined using the derived metric notation.

           [vfs]
           width = 6
           label = filesystem
           files = vfs.files.count
           inode = vfs.inodes.count - vfs.inodes.free
           inode.label = inodes

       The system default pcp-dstat plugin files contain many more
       examples.

FILES         top

       $HOME/.pcp/dstat/
              private per-user configuration files

       $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/dstat/
              system-wide configuration files

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), pcp-dstat(1), pminfo(1), pmprobe(1), pmrep(1),
       PMAPI(3), pmGetOptions(3), pmRegisterDerived(3) and
       pmrep.conf(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                      PCP-DSTAT(5)

Pages that refer to this page: pcp-dstat(1)