Provided by: pcp_6.3.3-1_amd64 
NAME
pmview - configuration file format for performance views
DESCRIPTION
This man page describes version 2.1 of the pmview (1) configuration file format.
The configuration format supports metrics from multiple hosts or archives. A configuration file can
specify metrics without a source, with different hosts and different archives. However, a configuration
file that contains archives may only have one archive for any one host. When in ``replay'' mode, any
metrics with host specific sources require an archive to be specified for that host on the command line
or as a source to a previous metric. The archive must be the same archive (based on a string comparison
of the archive names) of any archives specified in the configuration file for the same host.
The time controls will list all hosts that are specified on the command line and the configuration file
in the timezone listing (see pmtime(1)).
The configuration file format is based on a two-dimensional grid which can contain a variety of bars,
stacks, links, pipes, labels and other grids. The grids resize each column and row to match the size of
the largest item in that column or row. A configuration file that contains only one object does not
require a grid. The pmview configuration file starts with an identification header in the first non-
comment line:
pmview Version 2.1 [command_line]
The optional command_line should be the command line with which the tool was launched, if the
configuration file has been generated by another tool. This is useful for applications that are to be
restarted automatically on the next login, after the user has logged out while pmview was still running.
Care should be taken to ensure that the command specified is either a full pathname or will be found on
the PATH available at login.
All lines which begin with ``#'' are treated as comments and ignored. Otherwise, all spaces, tabs and
newlines are treated as white space so multiple commands may be on the same line.
The syntax for specifying values in the configuration file is consistent for all commands, namely:
color
A color must be either one of the 20-or so Qt color names (refer to the QColor class at
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qcolor.html#predefined-colors), or an HTML hexadecimal color value (enclosed
in quotes, e.g. "#ff6347"), or three normalized real values representing the saturation of red, green
and blue. For example, the following colors are identical:
red
"#ff0000"
1.0 0.0 0.0
int An integer.
metric
A metric consists of an optional source (host or archive), the metric name, an optional instance list
immediately after name, followed by the maximum (or normalization value). A colon (``:'') is used to
separate a host name from the metric, and a forward slash (``/'') to separate an archive name from
the metric. Instances are enclosed in square brackets and comma separated. Each instance may be
enclosed in quotes.
For example, some legal metrics are:
kernel.all.cpu.idle 4000
myhost:kernel.all.cpu.idle[cpu0,"cpu3"] 1000.0
/path/to/myarchive/kernel.all.cpu.idle[cpu1] 1000
To assist the process of matching instance names, two further comparisons are made beyond a simple
string comparison. If the instance name contains spaces, only the first word in the instance name is
required to match the instance, assuming that the first word is unique. If the first word is not
unique, only the first matching instance will be selected. The second comparison occurs if the first
word is a number with leading zeros. Any leading zeros will be skipped before comparing the first
word again. This permits process ids used in the proc metrics to be easily matched, without
specifying the entire instance name. For example, to visualize the user and system time of init use
the metric specification
proc.psusage.utime[1] 1000
proc.psusage.stime[1] 1000
name
A name for an object which may be referred to later in the configuration file. Names must be a
single word consisting of all alphanumeric characters, as well as underscores, dashes and colons. It
is recommended that names do not begin with an underscore as this may be interpreted as a keyword.
pos This is the position of the object within the grid. The syntax of a position is:
[ [x z] [ [width depth] [alignment] ] ]
x The horizontal coordinate (left to right) of the object, starting at 0. The default x is
0.
z The vertical coordinate (top to bottom) of the object, starting at 0. The default z is 0.
width The number of columns occupied by the object. The default width is 1.
depth The number of rows occupied by the object. The default depth is 1.
alignment
The edge or corner that the object is aligned with. Possible alignments include: north,
south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest and center. Abbreviations
like se and SE are also accepted. The default alignment is center.
The size of an object may not be known as the number of instances for some metrics will
vary between hosts and PMDA configurations. Therefore, the position of the object can be
used to specify the likely size of the object, so that the position of the surrounding
objects is appropriately adjusted.
The following are legal positions:
0 5 The object is centered at grid position 0,5 occupying 1 grid square.
1 2 north
The object is aligned with the north edge of position 1,2 occupying 1 grid square.
2 2 2 1 east
The object is aligned to the eastern edge of position 3,2 and occupies 2 grid
squares (2,2 and 3,2).
string
A string is a series of characters enclosed in double quotes. A string may not contain newlines or
escaped double quotes.
There are several parameters that may affect the size, shape and color of objects when they are
displayed. These parameters are scoped so that they only alter objects defined later in the same scope.
Therefore, parameter settings at the top of a configuration file affect the entire scene, unless they are
changed later in the file. Most of these parameters are also resources.
_barLength int
The side length of the _bar and _stack blocks. Default is 28.
_barHeight int
The maximum height of a _bar and _stack blocks. Default is 80.
_baseColor color
The color of _bar, _grid and _stack base planes. Default is "#262626" (i.e. gray15).
_baseHeight int
The height of _bar, _grid and _stack base planes. Default is 2.
_gapWidth int
The gap between blocks in a _bar object in the X-axis. The default is 8.
_gapDepth int
The gap between blocks in a _bar object in the Z-axis. The default is 8.
_gapLabel int
The gap between the base of a _bar object, and any metric or instance labels. The default is 6.
_gridWidth int
The minimum width of a _grid column. The default is 20.
_gridDepth int
The minimum depth of a _grid row. The default is 20.
_labelMargin int
The margin around a _label object. The default is 5.
_labelColor color
The color of _label and _bar labels. The default is white.
_marginWidth int
The extra width of a _bar, _grid and _stack base plane beyond the objects on the plane. The default
is 8.
_marginDepth int
The extra depth of a _bar, _grid and _stack base plane beyond the objects on the plane. The default
is 8.
_pipeLength int
Total length of a _pipe. The default is the value of _barHeight.
_scale real
The scale applied to the entire scene. This parameter may not be used within any objects, only at
the top of the configuration file. The default is 1.0.
To simplify the specification of colors, a _colorList and a _colorScale may be used to define colors for
an object which has metrics associated with it, i.e. _bar, _stack or _pipe. A color list may be defined
within an object, or named and defined at the top of a configuration file. A named color list may then
be referenced within multiple objects:
_colorList name ( color [color...] )
Associate the colors with the color list name. The assignment of colors to blocks depends on the
type of an object. For example, the color list called foo has the same color three times:
_colorList foo ( red "#ff0000" 1.0 0.0 0.0 )
_colorScale name color ( color real [color real...] )
Associate the colors and reals with the color list name. The initial color is the default color of
the object. The object will change color to the other colors when the normalized value of the object
is equal to or greater than each real. Therefore, each real must be larger than the previous real,
and should be in the range 0.0 to 1.0. This scale gradually changes from blue to red:
_colorScale coldToHot blue ( "#7f00ff" 0.3
purple 0.6
"#ff007f" 0.8
red 0.95)
There are several different object types which could be found in a pmview scene: _bar, _stack, _pipe,
_grid, _link, and _label. There is also _xing which is a special type of the _link. The _bar, _stack
and _pipe objects are modulated by metric values, a _label is fixed text, _link and _xing are
interconnects and a _grid is a container of objects, including other _grid objects, which controls the
layout of the scene. A _grid object is only required if there are two or more objects in the scene.
_bar, _grid and _stack objects may have base planes which provide a point of reference for the blocks as
they change height. A label can be applied to the base plane _grid object if it is _shown with:
_baseLabel name|string
_baseLabel should be used within the scope of the relevant _bar, _grid or _stack object. The first
``\n'' characters in the string will be replaced by a new line. Subsequent ``\n'' characters will be
ignored.
For a scene to be valid it must contain at least one modulated object.
The objects are defined as:
_bar [options] ( [metric-list] [color-list] [label-list] )
A _bar object represents a collection of blocks. The number of blocks depends on the number of
metrics and metric instances assigned to the object. By default, the blocks are modulated by
changing the height of each block. Alternatively, blocks may be modulated by changing color, or both
height and color. Each color in the color-list is assigned to each metric. Therefore, multiple
instances of the one metric will have the same color. The options that may be passed to a _bar
object are:
pos The position of the _bar object within the current _grid object.
_col|_row
Position the blocks so that each instance is in a column (_col) or a row (_row). This implies
that each different metric is in a separate row or column, respectively. The default is _col.
_show|_hide
Is the base plane visible? Default is _show.
_ymod|_colormod|_colorymod
Modulate the blocks by adjusting their height (_ymod), color (_colormod) or both height and color
(_colorymod).
_cube|_cylinder
Set the shape of the blocks. The default is _cube.
_groupbymetric|_groupbyinst|_groupbyrow||groupbycol
Set the grouping of blocks when launching other tools. For tools like pmchart(1) some views may
generate many small charts which cannot be drawn entirely within the screen. Another problem is
it may be more appropriate to generate charts with the same instance in each chart, rather then
the same metric. The group specifiers control the algorithm used so that a separate chart will
be drawn for each _metrics specification (_groupbymetric), for the first, second etc. instance of
each _metric (_groupbyinst), or by the rows and columns of the _bar object depending on _row or
_col. The default is _groupbymetric.
The options must be specified in this order, although preceding options are not required. Therefore,
this is legal:
_bar _hide _cylinder ( ... )
The metrics, colors and labels are specified within the brackets in any order. Only the metric-list
is mandatory.
metric-list
A _bar metric list contains a list of metric names, normalization values and an optional label
for the metric:
_metrics ( metric real [string] [metric real [string]...] )
color-list
A _bar color list may be a named color list that was defined earlier, or an unnamed color list.
A _colorScale list should be used when using _colormod or _colorymod modulation. Therefore, the
syntax for color lists within a _bar object are any of:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
_colorScale name
_colorScale color ( color real [color real...] )
label-list
In addition to labels for each metric in the metric-list, metric and instance labels may be
defined using _metriclabels and _instlabels statements. The position of the labels around the
_bar object depends on the _row or _col orientation of metrics and instances, and whether the
label is read _towards the _bar object, or _away. The default is _towards.
_metriclabels [_away|_towards] ( name|string [name|string...] )
_instlabels [_away|_towards] ( name|string
[name|string...] )
_grid [pos] [_show|_hide] ( objects )
A _grid object is a container for objects, including other _grid objects. The rows and columns of a
_grid object are resized to the largest object in the row or column. If an object spans multiple
rows and/or columns, those rows and columns may be partly resized to contain the object. However,
the resizing of rows and columns for objects occupying multiple rows and columns occurs after
resizing for objects occupying only one grid square.
A collision between objects occupying the same squares will be reported as an error message and the
later object will be ignored.
The options to a _grid object control the position (pos) of the _grid object in the parent _grid, and
indicate whether to _show or _hide the _grid base plane. By default, the base plane is hidden.
The parameters described above may be specified within the brackets of a _grid object, however they
only apply to the objects within the _grid, not the _grid itself. For a parameter to be applied to a
_grid object, it must be specified before the _grid object declaration.
_label [options] string
A _label object draws the contexts of string at the location, orientation and size specified in the
options:
pos The position of the _label object in the current _grid object.
_left|_right|_up|_down
The orientation of the string. The direction indicates the direction the label is read.
Therefore, _right is the default since the string is read from left to right.
_small|_medium|_large
The font size. The default is _medium.
_link pos [string]
A _link object draws a straight or L-shaped horizontal round ``pipe'' with diameter equal to 80% of
the _baseHeight of an enclosing _grid. The properties of the object are defined by the options:
pos sets both the position of the _link on the grid and its shape. _link starts in the column and
row on the _grid specified by first two numbers in the pos and spans the number of columns and
rows set by the second two numbers. The alignment value is used to decide the orientation of the
link (links are always aligned at the center): east and west links are straight and going from
left to right, north and south links are straight and going from far end of the grid to near end,
northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest links are L-shaped and connect the corresponding
points of the compass, i.e. a northeast link takes on the general shape of the Latin letter
``L''.
string
sets the ``tag'' for the _link which will be displayed in the text window when the pointer is
over the link.
_pipe pos ( [metric-list] [color-list] [tag] )
A _pipe object represent a set of cylinders, placed on top of each other and oriented parallel to the
base plane. The diameter of a _pipe is equal to 80% of _baseHeight. The number of blocks is
dependent on the number of metric instances in the metric-list. The colors in the color-list are
assigned in turn to each cylinder in the _pipe. The length of the _pipe is defined by the
_pipeLength.
pos defines the position of the _pipe on the enclosing _grid and its orientation with alignment field
used to define at which end of the pipe to stack the colored cylinders. The cylinders are stacked
at the corresponding point of the compass and the pipe's direction is from the point of the
compass towards the center of the compass. Only east, west, north, and south are valid values
for the pipe's alignment.
The metrics, colors and label may be specified within the brackets in any order. Only the metric-list is
mandatory.
metric-list
A _pipe metric list contains a list of metric names and normalization values:
_metrics ( metric real [metric real...] )
color-list
A _pipe color list may be named color list that was defined earlier, or an unnamed color list:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
tag A _pipe may have a ``tag'' for the filler block (unanimated block on the ``other'' end of the pipe)
which will be displayed in the text window when the pointer is over that end of the pipe.
_pipeTag name|string
_stack [options] ( [metric-list] [color-list] [label] )
A _stack object represents a set of blocks placed vertically on top of each other. The number of
blocks is dependent on the number of metric instances in the metric-list. The colors in the color-
list are assigned to each block in the _stack. By default, the height of the _stack will be the sum
of the height of each block. The options that may be passed to a _stack object are:
pos The position of the _stack object within the current _grid object.
_show|_hide
Is the base plane visible? Default is _show.
_utilmod|_fillmod
Force the height of the stack to always be the maximum height. This is achieved by normalizing
the height of each block (_utilmod), or by adding a grey block to the top of the stack
(_fillmod).
_cube|_cylinder
Set the shape of the blocks. The default is _cube.
The options must be specified in this order, although preceding options are not required. Therefore,
this is legal:
_stack 1 1 _north _utilmod ( ... )
The metrics, colors and label may be specified within the brackets in any order. Only the metric-
list is mandatory.
metric-list
A _stack metric list contains a list of metric names and normalization values:
_metrics ( metric real [metric real...] )
color-list
A _stack color list may be named color list that was defined earlier, or an unnamed color list:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
label
A _fillmod type _stack may have a label for the filler block:
_stackLabel name|string
_xing col row columns rows dir1 ... dir4
A _xing is a special kind of link which is used to draw a pair of links which cross each other. To
convey the visual impression that the links do not join, one of the links is drawn as a ``broken''
cylinder. col and row define the position on the enclosing grid. columns and rows define the size
of the bounding box. The end points of the crossing cylinders are placed exactly in the center of the
corner cells of the bounding box and four small cylinders or stubs are used to join the perimeter of
the bounding box with the end points on the crossing cylinders. Four dir values define the
orientation of the stubs, starting at the upper left corner of the _xing and proceeding clockwise,
such that respective stubs are used to join the point of the compass with the center on the cell (see
example).
EXAMPLE
This simple example illustrates the use of parameters and different object types:
pmview Version 2.1
# Use a lighter grey for the base planes
_baseColor "#7f7f7f"
# Define colors for CPU object
_colorList cpu ( blue2 red2 yellow2 cyan2 green2 )
# The top grid object, but hide it from view
_grid _hide (
# Show the current load in a bar object
_bar 0 0 (
_baseLabel "Load averages over a\n1, 5 and 15 minute interval"
_metrics (
kernel.all.load[1] 1 "1"
kernel.all.load[5] 1 "5"
kernel.all.load[15] 1 "15"
)
_colorList ( blue blue blue )
)
# Add a label below the load bars
_label 0 1 "Load"
# Change the color of the base plane for later objects
_baseColor "#fba2f5" # pink
# Show the CPU usage over all CPUs in a utilization stack
_stack 2 0 _south _utilmod (
_baseLabel "CPU Utilization over all CPUs"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.intr 1000
kernel.all.cpu.wait.total 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
# Add a label below the CPU stack
_label 2 1 "CPU"
# Create a separate grid for links and pipes
_marginWidth 1
_marginDepth 1
_gridSpace 12
_grid 0 3 5 4 _hide (
_pipeLength 12
_baseHeight 12
# Add a pipe and a link with western orientation
_pipe 0 0 west (
_pipeTag "West pipe"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
_link 0 2 west "West link"
# Add xing
_xing 1 0 3 3 west east east west
# Add a link and a pipe with eastern orientation
_pipe 4 0 east (
_pipeTag "East Pipe"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
_link 4 2 east "East link"
)
)
SEE ALSO
pmview(1).
Performance Co-Pilot PMVIEW(5)