Ubuntu Manpage: pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector and querying

NAME

       pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector and querying

SYNOPSIS

       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

       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,  real-time  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

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 daemonising 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, dynamically 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

       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

       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

       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

       $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

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

       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).