PMLOGGER_CHECK(1)PMLOGGER_CHECK(1)NAME
pmlogger_check, pmlogger_daily, pmlogger_merge - administration of Per‐
formance Co-Pilot archive log files
SYNOPSIS
$PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check [-CNsTV] [-c control]
$PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily [-NorV] [-c control] [-k discard] [-m
addresses] [-s size] [-t want] [-x compress] [-X program] [-Y regex]
$PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_merge [-fNV] [input-basename ... output-name]
DESCRIPTION
This series of shell scripts and associated control files may be used
to create a customized regime of administration and management for Per‐
formance Co-Pilot (see PCPintro(1)) archive log files.
pmlogger_daily is intended to be run once per day, preferably in the
early morning, as soon after midnight as practicable. Its task is to
aggregate and rotate one or more sets of PCP archives. After some
period, old PCP archives are discarded. This period is 14 days by
default, but may be changed using the -k option. Two special values are
recognized for the period (discard), namely 0 to keep no archives
beyond the current one, and forever to prevent any archives being dis‐
carded.
Archive data files can optionally be compressed after some period (com‐
press), to conserve disk space. This is particularly useful for large
numbers of pmlogger processes under the control of pmlogger_check. The
-x option specifies the number of days after which to compress archive
data files, and the -X option specifies the program to use for compres‐
sion - by default this is bzip2(1). Use of the -Y option allows a reg‐
ular expression to be specified causing files in the set of files
matched for compression to be omitted - this allows only the data file
to be compressed, and also prevents the program from attempting to com‐
press it more than once. The default regex is
".meta$|.index$|.Z$|.gz$|.bz2|.zip$" - such files are filtered using
the -v option to egrep(1).
In addition, if the PCP ``notices'' file ($PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES) is
larger than 20480 bytes, pmlogger_daily will rename the file with a
``.old'' suffix, and start a new ``notices'' file. The rotate thresh‐
old may be changed from 20480 to size bytes using the -s option.
Use of the -m option causes pmlogger_daily to construct a summary of
the ``notices'' file entries which were generated in the last 24 hours,
and e-mail that summary to the set of space-separated addresses. This
daily summary is stored in the file $PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES.daily, which
will be empty when no new ``notices'' entries were made in the previous
24 hour period.
pmlogger_check may be run at any time, and is intended to check that
the desired set of pmlogger(1) processes are running, and if not to re-
launch any failed loggers. Use of the -s option provides the reverse
functionality, allowing the set of pmlogger processes to be cleanly
shutdown. Use of the -C option queries the system service runlevel
information for pmlogger, and uses that to determine whether to start
or stop processes.
pmlogger_merge is a wrapper script for pmlogmerge(1) that merges all of
the archive logs matching the input-basename arguments, and creates a
new archive using output-name as the base name for the physical files
that constitute an archive log. The input-basename arguments may con‐
tain meta characters in the style of sh(1). If specified, the -f
option causes all of the input files to be removed once the output ar‐
chive has been created.
pmlogger_merge is used by pmlogger_daily.
To assist with debugging or diagnosing intermittent failures the -t
option may be used. This will turn on very verbose tracing (-VV) and
capture the trace output in a file named $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlog‐
ger/daily.datestamp.trace, where datestamp is the time pmlogger_daily
was run in the format YYYYMMDD.HH.MM. In addition, the want argument
will ensure that trace files created with -t will be kept for want days
and then discarded.
Both pmlogger_daily and pmlogger_check are controlled by a PCP logger
control file that specifies the pmlogger instances to be managed. The
default control file is $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH, but an alternate may
be specified using the -c option.
The control file should be customized according to the following rules
that define for the current version (1.1) of the control file format.
1. Lines beginning with a ``#'' are comments.
2. Lines beginning with a ``$'' are assumed to be assignments to
environment variables in the style of sh(1), and all text fol‐
lowing the ``$'' will be eval'ed by the script reading the con‐
trol file, and the corresponding variable exported into the
environment. This is particularly useful to set and export
variables into the environment of the administrative scripts,
e.g.
$ PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=20
Warning: The $PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH file must not be writable
by any user other than root.
3. There must be a version line of the form:
$ version=1.1
4. There should be one line in the control file for each pmlogger
instance of the form:
host y|n y|n directory args
5. Fields within a line of the control file are separated by one or
more spaces or tabs.
6. The first field is the name of the host that is the source of
the performance metrics for this pmlogger instance.
7. The second field indicates if this is a primary pmlogger
instance (y) or not (n). Since the primary logger must run on
the local host, and there may be at most one primary logger for
a particular host, this field can be y for at most one pmlogger
instance, in which case the host name must be the name of the
local host.
8. The third field indicates if this pmlogger instance needs to be
started under the control of pmsocks(1) to connect to a pmcd
through a firewall (y or n).
9. The fourth field is a directory name. All files associated with
this pmlogger instance will be created in this directory, and
this will be the current directory for the execution of any pro‐
grams required in the maintenance of those archives. A useful
convention is that primary logger archives for the local host
with hostname myhost are maintained in the directory
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/myhost (this is where the default pmlogger
start-up script in $PCP_RC_DIR/pcp will create the archives),
while archives for the remote host mumble are maintained in
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/mumble.
10. All other fields are interpreted as arguments to be passed to
pmlogger(1) and/or pmnewlog(1). Most typically this would be
the -c option.
The following sample control lines specify a primary logger on the
local host (bozo), and a non-primary logger to collect and log perfor‐
mance metrics from the host boing.
$version=1.1
bozo y n $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/bozo -c config.default
boing n n $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/boing -c ./pmlogger.config
Typical crontab(5) entries for periodic execution of pmlogger_daily and
pmlogger_check are given in $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab (unless
installed by default in /etc/cron.d already) and shown below.
# daily processing of archive logs
14 0 * * * $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily
# every 30 minutes, check pmlogger instances are running
25,55 * * * * $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_check
The output from the cron(1) execution of the scripts may be extended
using the -V option to the scripts which will enable verbose tracing of
their activity. By default the scripts generate no output unless some
error or warning condition is encountered.
The -N option enables a ``show me'' mode, where the actions are echoed,
but not executed, in the style of ``make -n''. Using -N in conjunction
with -V maximizes the diagnostic capabilities for debugging.
By default all possible archives will be merged. The -o option rein‐
states the old behaviour in which only yesterday's archives will be
considered as merge candidates.
The -T option provides a terser form of output for pmlogger_check that
is most suitable for a pmlogger ``farm'' where many instances of pmlog‐
ger are expected to be running.
To accommodate the evolution of PMDAs and changes in production logging
environments, pmlogger_daily is integrated with pmlogrewrite(1) to
allow optional and automatic rewriting of archives before merging. If
there are global rewriting rules to be applied across all archives men‐
tioned in the control file, then create the directory
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite and place any pmlogrewrite(1) rewriting
rules in this directory. For rewriting rules that are specific to only
one family of archives, use the directory name from the control file
(the fourth field) and create a file, or a directory, or a symbolic
link named pmlogrewrite within this directory and place the required
rewriting rule(s) in the pmlogrewrite file or in files within the pmlo‐
grewrite subdirectory. pmlogger_daily will choose rewriting rules from
the archive directory if they exist, else rewriting rules from
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogrewrite if that directory exists, else no rewrit‐
ing is attempted.
The -r command line option acts as an over-ride and prevents all ar‐
chive rewriting with pmlogrewrite(1) independent of the presence of any
rewriting rule files or directories.
The script $PCP_BINADM_DIR/pmlogger_daily could be copied and modified
to implement a site-specific procedure for end-of-week and/or end-of-
month management for a set of PCP archives.
FILES
$PCP_PMLOGGERCONTROL_PATH
the PCP logger control file
Warning: this file must not be writable by any user other
than root.
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/crontab
sample crontab for automated script execution by $PCP_USER
(or root). Exists only if the platform does not support the
/etc/cron.d mechanism.
$PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pmlogger/config.default
default pmlogger configuration file location for the local
primary logger, typically generated automatically by pmlog‐
conf(1).
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname
default location for archives of performance information col‐
lected from the host hostname
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname/lock
transient lock file to guarantee mutual exclusion during
pmlogger administration for the host hostname - if present,
can be safely removed if neither pmlogger_daily nor pmlog‐
ger_check are running
$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmlogger/hostname/Latest
PCP archive folio created by mkaf(1) for the most recently
launched archive containing performance metrics from the host
hostname
$PCP_LOG_DIR/NOTICES
PCP ``notices'' file used by pmie(1) and friends
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).
SEE ALSObzip2(1), cron(1), egrep(1), PCP(1), pmlc(1), pmlogconf(1), pmlog‐
ger(1), pmlogmerge(1), pmlogrewrite(1), pmnewlog(1) and pmsocks(1).
Performance Co-Pilot PCP PMLOGGER_CHECK(1)
