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irix-657m-src/eoe/man/man1/pmcd.1
2022-09-29 17:59:04 +03:00

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Groff

'\"macro stdmacro
.nr X
.if \nX=0 .ds x} PMCD 1 "Performance Co-Pilot" "\&"
.if \nX=1 .ds x} PMCD 1 "Performance Co-Pilot"
.if \nX=2 .ds x} PMCD 1 "" "\&"
.if \nX=3 .ds x} PMCD "" "" "\&"
.TH \*(x}
.SH NAME
\f3pmcd\f1 \- performance metrics collector daemon
.SH SYNOPSIS
\f3pmcd\f1
[\f3\-f\f1]
[\f3\-i\f1 \f2ipaddress\f1]
[\f3\-l\f1 \f2logfile\f1]
[\f3\-n\f1 \f2pmnsfile\f1]
[\f3\-q\f1 \f2timeout\f1]
[\f3\-T\f1 \f2traceflag\f1]
[\f3\-t\f1 \f2timeout\f1]
[\f3\-x\f1 \f2file\f1]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pmcd
is the collector used by the Performance Co-Pilot (see
.BR PCPIntro (1))
to gather performance metrics
on a system.
As a rule, there must be an instance of
.B pmcd
running on a system for any performance metrics to be available to the
PCP.
.PP
.B pmcd
accepts connections from client applications running either on
the same machine or remotely and provides them with metrics and other related
information from the machine that
.B pmcd
is executing on.
.B pmcd
delegates most of this request servicing to
a collection of Performance Metrics Domain Agents
(or just agents), where each agent is responsible for a particular group of
metrics, known as the domain of the agent. For example the
.B environ
agent is responsible for
reporting information relating to the environment of a Challenge
system, such as the
cabinet temperature and voltage levels of the power supply.
.PP
The agents may be processes started by
.BR pmcd ,
independent processes or Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs, see
.BR dso (5))
attached to
.BR pmcd 's
address space.
The configuration section below describes how connections to
agents are specified.
.PP
The options to
.B pmcd
are as follows.
.TP
.B \-f
By default
.B pmcd
is started as a daemon.
The
.B \-f
option indicates that it should run in the foreground.
This is most useful when trying to diagnose problems with misbehaving
agents.
.TP
\f3\-i\f1 \f2ipaddress\f1
This option is usually only used on hosts with more than one network
interface. If no
.B \-i
options are specified
.B pmcd
accepts connections made to any of its host's IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.
The
.B \-i
option is used to specify explicitly an IP address that connections should be
accepted on.
.I ipaddress
should be in the standard dotted form (e.g. 100.23.45.6). The
.B \-i
option may be used multiple times to define a list of IP addresses.
Connections made to any other IP addresses the host has will be refused. This
can be used to limit connections to one network interface if the host is a
network gateway. It is also useful if the host takes over the IP address of
another host that has failed. In such a situation only the standard IP
addresses of the host should be given (not the ones inherited from the failed
host). This allows PCP applications to determine that a host has failed,
rather than connecting to the host that has assumed the identity of the failed
host.
.TP
\f3\-l\f1 \f2logfile\f1
By default a log file named
.I pmcd.log
is written in the directory
.I /var/adm/pcplog
(else the directory identified by the
.B PCP_LOGDIR
environment variable).
The
.B \-l
option causes the log file to be written to
.I logfile
instead of the default.
If the log file cannot be created or is not writable, output is
written to the standard error instead.
The
.B \-l
option specifies an alternative name for the log file.
.TP
\f3\-n\f1 \f2pmnsfile\f1
Normally
.B pmcd
loads the default Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS) from
.IR /var/pcp/pmns/root ,
however if the
.B \-n
option is specified an alternative namespace is loaded
from the file
.IR pmnsfile .
.TP
\f3\-q\f1 \f2timeout\f1
The pmcd to agent version exchange protocol (new in PCP 2.0 - introduced to
provide backward compatibility) uses this timeout to specify how long pmcd
should wait before assuming that no version response is coming from an agent.
If this timeout is reached, the agent is assumed to be an agent which does
not understand the PCP 2.0 protocol.
The default timeout interval is five seconds,
but the
.B \-q
option allows an alternative timeout interval (which must be greater than
zero) to be specified. The unit of time is seconds.
.TP
\f3\-t\f1 \f2timeout\f1
To prevent misbehaving agents from hanging the entire Performance Metrics
Collection System (PMCS),
.B pmcd
uses timeouts on PDU exchanges with agents running as processes.
By
default the timeout interval is five seconds.
The
.B \-t
option allows an alternative timeout interval in seconds to be specified.
If
.I timeout
is zero, timeouts are turned off.
It is almost impossible to use the debugger
interactively on an agent unless timeouts have been turned off for its "parent"
.BR pmcd .
.RS
.PP
Once
.B pmcd
is running, the timeout may be dynamically
modified by storing an integer value (the timeout in seconds)
into the metric
.B pmcd.control.timeout
via
.BR pmstore (1).
.RE
.TP
\f3\-T\f1 \f2traceflag\f1
To assist with error diagnosis for agents and/or clients of
.B pmcd
that are not behaving correctly, an internal event tracing
mechanism is supported within
.BR pmcd .
The value of
.I traceflag
is interpreted as a bit field with the following control functions:
.RS
.TP 4n
.PD 0
.B 1
enable client connection tracing
.TP
.B 2
enable PDU tracing
.TP
.B 256
unbuffered event tracing
.PD
.PP
By default, event tracing is buffered using
a circular buffer that is over-written as new
events are recorded. The default
buffer size holds the last 20 events, although this number
may be over-ridden by using
.BR pmstore (1)
to modify the metric
.BR "pmcd.control.tracebufs" .
.PP
Similarly once
.B pmcd
is running, the event tracing control
may be dynamically
modified by storing 1 (enable) or
0 (disable) into the metrics
.BR pmcd.control.traceconn ,
.B pmcd.control.tracepdu
and
.BR pmcd.control.tracenobuf .
These metrics map to the bit fields associated with the
.I traceflag
argument for the
.B \-T
option.
.PP
When operating in buffered mode,
the event trace buffer will be dumped whenever an agent connection is
terminated by
.BR pmcd ,
or when any value is stored into the metric
.B pmcd.control.dumptrace
via
.BR pmstore (1).
.PP
In unbuffered mode,
.B every
event will be reported when it occurs.
.RE
.TP
\f3\-x\f1 \f2file\f1
Before the
.B pmcd
.I logfile
can be opened,
.B pmcd
may encounter a fatal error which prevents it from starting. By default, the
output describing this error is sent to
.I /dev/tty
but it may redirected to
.IR file .
.PP
If a PDU exchange with an agent times out, the agent has violated the
requirement that it delivers metrics with little or no delay.
This is deemed a
protocol failure and the agent is disconnected from
.BR pmcd .
Any subsequent requests for information from the agent will fail with a status
indicating that there is no agent to provide it.
.PP
It is possible to specify host-level access control to
.BR pmcd .
This allows one to prevent users from certain hosts from accessing the
metrics provided by
.B pmcd
and is described in more detail in the Section on ACCESS CONTROL below.
.SH CONFIGURATION
On startup
.B pmcd
looks for a configuration file named
.IR /etc/pmcd.conf .
This file specifies which agents cover which performance metrics domains and
how
.B pmcd
should make contact with the agents.
An optional section specifying host-based
access controls may follow the agent configuration data.
.PP
\f3Warning\f1:
.B pmcd
is usually started as part of the boot sequence and runs as root.
The
configuration file may contain shell commands to create agents, which will be
executed by root.
To prevent security breaches the configuration file should
be writable only by root.
The use of absolute path names is also recommended.
.PP
The case of the reserved words in the configuration file is unimportant, but
elsewhere, the case is preserved.
.PP
Blank lines and comments are permitted (even encouraged) in the configuration
file.
A comment begins with a ``#''
character and finishes at the end of the line.
A line may be continued by
ensuring that the last character on the line is a ``\\''
(backslash).
A comment on a continued line ends at the end of the continued
line.
Spaces may be included in lexical elements by enclosing the entire
element in double quotes (there must be whitespace before the opening and after
the closing quote).
A double quote preceded by a backslash is always a
literal double quote.
A ``#''
in double quotes or preceded by a backslash is treated literally rather than as
a comment delimiter.
Lexical elements and separators are described further in
the following sections.
.SH "AGENT CONFIGURATION"
Each line of the agent configuration section of the configuration file contains
details of how to connect
.B pmcd
to one of its agents and specifies which metrics domain the agent deals with.
An agent may be attached as a DSO, or via a socket, or a pair
of pipes.
.PP
Each line of the agent configuration section of the configuration file must be
either an agent specification, a comment, or a blank line.
Lexical elements
are separated by whitespace characters, however a single agent specification
may not be broken across lines unless a
.B \\\\\&
(backslash) is used to continue the line.
.PP
Each agent specification must start with a textual label (string) followed by
an integer in the range 1 to 254.
The label is a tag used to refer to the
agent and the integer specifies the domain for which the agent supplies data.
This domain identifier corresponds to the domain portion of the PMIDs handled
by the agent.
Each agent must have a unique label and domain identifier.
.PP
For DSO agents a line of the form:
.TP
\&
\f2label\f1 \f2domain-no\f1 \f3dso\f1 \f2entry-point\f1 \f2path\f1
.PP
should appear.
Where,
.TP 14
.PD 0
.I label
is a string identifying the agent
.TP 14
.I domain-no
is an unsigned integer specifying the agent's domain in the range 1 to 254
.TP 14
.I entry-point
is the name of an initialization function which will be called when the DSO is
loaded
.TP 14
.I path
designates the location of the DSO. If
.I path
begins with a
.B /
it is taken as an absolute path specifying the DSO. If
.I path
is relative,
.B pmcd
will expect to find the agent in a file with the name
\f3mips_\f2simabi\f3.\f2path\f1,
where
.I simabi
is either
.BR o32 ,
.BR n32
or
.BR 64 .
.B pmcd
is only able to load DSO agents that have the same
.I simabi
(Subprogram Interface Model ABI, or calling conventions) as it does (i.e. only
one of the
.I simabi
versions will be applicable). The
.I simabi
version of a running
.B pmcd
may be determined by fetching
.BR pmcd.simabi .
Alternatively, the
.BR file (1)
command may be used to determine the
.I simabi
version from the
.B pmcd
executable.
.PD
.PP
For a relative
.I path
the environment variable
.B PMCD_PATH
defines a colon (:) separated list of directories to search
when trying to locate the agent DSO. The default
search path is
.IR "/var/pcp/lib:/usr/pcp/lib" .
.PP
For agents providing socket connections, a line of the form
.TP
\&
\f2label\f1 \f2domain-no\f1 \f3socket\f1 \f2addr-family\f1 \f2address\f1 [ \f2command\f1 ]
.PP
should appear.
Where,
.TP 14
.PD 0
.I label
is a string identifying the agent
.TP 14
.I domain-no
is an unsigned integer specifying the agent's domain in the range 1 to 254
.TP 14
.I addr-family
designates whether the socket is in the
.B AF_INET
or
.B AF_UNIX
domain, and the corresponding
values for this parameter are
.B inet
and
.B unix
respectively.
.TP 14
.I address
specifies the address of the socket within the previously
specified
.I addr-family.
For
.B unix
sockets, the address should be the name of an agent's socket on the
local host (a valid address for the UNIX domain).
For
.B inet
sockets, the address may be either a port number or a port name which may be
used to connect to an agent on the local host.
There is no syntax for
specifying an agent on a remote host as a
.B pmcd
deals only with agents on the same machine.
.TP 14
.I command
is an optional parameter used to specify a command line to start the agent when
.B pmcd
initializes.
If
.I command
is not present,
.B pmcd
assumes that the specified agent has
already been created.
The
.I command
is considered to start from the first non-white character after the socket
address and finish at the next newline that isn't preceded by a backslash.
After a
.BR fork (2)
the
.I command
is passed unmodified to
.BR execve (2)
to instantiate the agent.
.PD
.PP
For agents interacting with the
.B pmcd
via stdin/stdout, a line of the form:
.TP
\&
\f2label\f1 \f2domain-no\f1 \f3pipe\f1 \f2protocol\f1 \f2command\f1
.PP
should appear.
Where,
.TP 14
.PD 0
.I label
is a string identifying the agent
.TP 14
.I domain-no
is a unsigned integer specifying the agent's domain
.TP 14
.I protocol
specifies whether a text-based (ASCII) or a binary protocol should be used over the
pipes.
The two valid values for this parameter are
.B text
and
.BR binary .
.BR Note :
To the best of our knowledge, nothing but the demonstration PMDA news agent
and the America's Cup San Diego water temperature agent
has ever used the ASCII PDU interface to
.BR pmcd .
The current PCP libraries (in particular
.I libpcp_pmda
and
.IR libpcp_trace )
make building a real PMDA less effort than fighting with the ASCII PDUs
in a
.BR sh (1)
script.
Consequently, support for ASCII PDUs and hence the keyword
.B text
in the
.B pmcd
configuration file is discouraged.
.PD
.TP 14
.I command
specifies a command line to start the agent when
.B pmcd
initializes.
Note that
.I command
is mandatory for pipe-based agents.
The
.I command
is considered to start from the first non-white character after the
.I protocol
parameter and finish at the next newline that isn't preceded by a backslash.
After a
.BR fork (2)
the
.I command
is passed unmodified to
.BR execve (2)
to instantiate the agent.
.SH "ACCESS CONTROL CONFIGURATION"
The access control section of the configuration file is optional, but if
present it must follow the agent configuration data.
The case of reserved
words is ignored, but elsewhere case is preserved.
Lexical elements in the
access control section are separated by whitespace
or the special delimiter characters:
square brackets (``['' and ``]''),
braces (``{'' and ``}''),
colon (``:''),
semicolon (``;'')
and
comma (``,'').
The special characters are not treated as special in the agent configuration
section.
.PP
The access control section of the file must start with a line of the form:
.TP
.B [access]
.PP
Leading and trailing whitespace may appear around and within the brackets and
the case of the
.B access
keyword is ignored.
No other text may appear on the line except a trailing
comment.
.PP
Following this line, the remainder of the configuration file should contain
lines that allow or disallow operations from particular hosts or groups of
hosts.
.PP
There are two kinds of operations that occur via
.BR pmcd :
.TP 15
.B fetch
allows retrieval of information from
.BR pmcd .
This may be information about a metric (e.g. it's description, instance domain
or help text) or a value for a metric.
.TP 15
.B store
allows
.B pmcd
to be used to store metric values in agents that permit store operations.
.PP
Access to
.B pmcd
is granted at the host level, i.e. \c
all users on a host are granted the same level
of access.
Permission to perform the
.B store
operation should not be given indiscriminately; it has the potential to be
abused by malicious users.
.PP
Hosts may be identified by name, IP address or a wildcarded IP address with the
single wildcard character ``*'' as the last-given component of the IP
address.
Host names may not be wildcarded.
The
following are all valid host identifiers:
.deCS
.in+0.5i
.ftCW
.nf
..
.deCE
.fi
.ft1
.in
..
.PP
.CS
boing
localhost
giggle.melbourne.sgi.com
129.127.112.2
129.127.114.*
129.*
*
.CE
.PP
The following are not valid host identifiers:
.PP
.CS
*.melbourne
129.127.*.*
129.*.114.9
129.127*
.CE
.PP
The first example is not allowed because only (numeric) IP addresses may
contain a wildcard.
The second example is not valid because there is more than
one wildcard character.
The third contains an embedded wildcard, the fourth
has a wildcard character that is not the last component of
the IP address (the last component is \f(CW127*\f1).
.PP
The name
.B localhost
is given special treatment to make the behavior of host wildcarding
consistent.
Rather than being 127.0.0.1, it is mapped to the primary IP address
associated with the name of the host on which
.B pmcd
is running.
Beware of this when running
.B pmcd
on multi-homed hosts.
.PP
Access for hosts are allowed or disallowed by specifying statements of the
form:
.TP
\&
\f3allow\f1 \f2hostlist\f1 \f3:\f1 \f2operations\f1 \f3;\f1
.br
\f3disallow\f1 \f2hostlist\f1 \f3:\f1 \f2operations\f1 \f3;\f1
.PP
.TP 14
.I hostlist
is a comma separated list of host identifiers.
.TP 14
.I operations
is a comma separated list of the operation types described above,
.B all
(which allows/disallows all operations), or
.B all except
.I operations
(which allows/disallows all operations except those listed).
.PP
Where no specific
.B allow
or
.B disallow
statement applies to an operation for some host, the default is to allow the
operation from that host.
In the trivial case when there is no access control
section in the configuration file, all operations from all hosts are permitted.
.PP
If a new connection to
.B pmcd
is attempted from a host that is not permitted to perform any operations, the
connection will be closed immediately after an error response
.B PM_ERR_PERMISSION
has been sent to the
client attempting the connection.
.PP
Statements with the same level of wildcarding specifying identical hosts may
not contradict each other.
For example if a host named
.B clank
had an IP address of 129.127.112.2, specifying the following two rules would be
erroneous:
.PP
.CS
allow clank : fetch, store;
disallow 129.127.112.2 : all except fetch;
.CE
.PP
because they both refer to the same host, but disagree as to whether the
.B fetch
operation is permitted from that host.
.PP
Statements containing more specific host specifications override less specific
ones according to the level of wildcarding.
For example a rule of the form
.PP
.CS
allow clank : all;
.CE
.PP
overrides
.PP
.CS
disallow 129.127.112.* : all except fetch;
.CE
.PP
because the former contains a specific host name (equivalent to a fully
specified IP address), whereas the latter has a wildcard.
In turn, the latter
would override
.PP
.CS
disallow * : all;
.CE
.PP
It is possible to limit the number of connections from a host to
.BR pmcd .
This may be done by adding a clause of the form
.TP
\&
\f3maximum\f1 \f2n\f1 \f3connections\f1
.PP
to the
.I operations
list of an
.B allow
statement.
Such a clause may not be used in a
.B disallow
statement.
Here,
.I n
is the maximum number of connections that will be accepted from hosts matching
the host identifier(s) used in the statement.
.PP
An access control statement with a list of host identifiers is equivalent to a
group of access control statements, with each specifying one of the host
identifiers in the list and all with the same access controls (both permissions
and connection limits).
A wildcard should be used if you want hosts to
contribute to a shared connection limit.
.PP
When a
new client requests a connection, and
.B pmcd
has determined that the client has permission to connect, it searches the
matching list of access control statements for the most specific match
containing a connection limit.
For brevity, this will be called the limiting
statement.
If there is no limiting statement, the client is granted a
connection.
If there is a limiting statement and the number of
.B pmcd
clients with IP addresses that match the host identifier in the limiting
statement is less than the connection limit in the statement, the connection is
allowed.
Otherwise the connection limit has been reached and the client is
refused a connection.
.PP
The wildcarding in host identifiers means that once
.B pmcd
actually accepts a connection from a client, the connection may contribute to
the current connection count of more than one access control statement (the
client's host may match more than one access control statement).
This may be
significant for subsequent connection requests.
.PP
Note that because most specific match semantics are used when checking the
connection limit, priority is given to clients with more specific host
identifiers.
It is also possible to exceed connection limits in some
situations.
Consider the following:
.IP
allow clank : all, maximum 5 connections;
.br
allow * : all except store, maximum 2 connections;
.PP
This says that only 2 client connections at a time are permitted for all
hosts other than "clank", which is permitted 5.
If a client from host "boing"
is the first to connect to
.BR pmcd ,
it's connection is checked against the second statement (that is the most
specific match with a connection limit).
As there are no other clients, the
connection is accepted and contributes towards the limit for only the second
statement above.
If the next client connects from "clank", its connection is
checked against the limit for the first statement.
There are no other
connections from "clank", so the connection is accepted.
Once this connection
is accepted, it counts towards
.B both
statements' limits because "clank" matches the host identifier in both
statements.
Remember that the decision to accept a new connection is made
using only the most specific matching access control statement with a
connection limit.
Now, the connection limit for the second statement has been
reached.
Any connections from hosts other than "clank" will be refused.
.PP
If instead,
.B pmcd
with no clients saw three successive connections arrived from "boing", the
first two would be accepted and the third refused.
After that, if a connection
was requested from "clank" it would be accepted.
It matches the first
statement, which is more specific than the second, so the connection limit in
the first is used to determine that the client has the right to connect.
Now
there are 3 connections contributing to the second statement's connection
limit.
Even though the connection limit for the second statement has been
exceeded, the earlier connections from "boing" are maintained.
The connection
limit is only checked at the time a client attempts a connection rather than
being re-evaluated every time a new client connects to
.BR pmcd .
.PP
This gentle scheme is designed to allow reasonable limits to be imposed
on a first come first served basis, with specific exceptions.
.PP
As illustrated by the example above, a client's connection is honored once it
has been accepted.
However,
.B pmcd
reconfiguration (see the next section) re-evaluates all the connection counts
and will cause client connections to be dropped where connection limits have
been exceeded.
.SH "RECONFIGURING PMCD"
If the configuration file has been changed or if an agent is not responding
because it has terminated or the PMNS has been changed,
.B pmcd
may be reconfigured by sending it a SIGHUP, as in
.PP
.CS
# killall -HUP pmcd
.CE
.PP
When
.B pmcd
receives a SIGHUP, it checks the configuration file for changes.
If the file
has been modified, it is reparsed and the contents become the new
configuration.
If there are errors in the configuration file, the existing
configuration is retained and the contents of the file are ignored.
Errors are reported in the
.B pmcd
log file.
.PP
It also checks the PMNS file for changes. If the PMNS file has been
modified, then it is reloaded.
Use of
.BR tail (1)
on the log file is recommended while reconfiguring
.BR pmcd .
.PP
If the configuration for an agent has changed (any parameter except the agent's
label is different), the agent is restarted.
Agents whose configurations do not change are not
restarted.
Any existing agents
not present in the new configuration are terminated.
Any deceased agents are that are still listed are
restarted.
.PP
Sometimes it is necessary to restart an agent that is still running, but
malfunctioning.
Simply kill the agent, then send
.B pmcd
a SIGHUP, which will cause the agent to be restarted.
.SH "STARTING AND STOPPING PMCD"
Normally,
.B pmcd
is started automatically at boot time and stopped when the
system is being brought down (see
.BR rc2 (1M)
and
.BR rc0 (1M)).
Under certain circumstances it is necessary to start or stop
.B pmcd
manually.
To do this one must become superuser and type
.PP
.CS
# /etc/init.d/pcp start
.CE
.PP
to start
.BR pmcd ,
or
.PP
.CS
# /etc/init.d/pcp stop
.CE
.PP
to stop
.BR pmcd .
Starting
.B pmcd
when it is already running is the same as stopping
it and then starting it again.
.PP
Sometimes it may be necessary to restart
.B pmcd
during another phase of the boot process.
Time-consuming parts of the boot
process are often put into the background to allow the system to become
available sooner (e.g. mounting huge databases).
If an agent run by
.B pmcd
requires such a task to complete before it can run properly, it is necessary to
restart or reconfigure
.B pmcd
after the task completes.
Consider, for example, the case of mounting a
database in the background while booting.
If the PMDA which provides the
metrics about the database cannot function until the database is mounted and
available but
.B pmcd
is started before the database is ready, the PMDA will fail (however
.B pmcd
will still service requests for metrics from other domains).
If the database
is initialized by running a shell script, adding a line to the end of the
script to reconfigure
.B pmcd
(by sending it a SIGHUP) will restart the PMDA (if it exited because it
couldn't connect to the database).
If the PMDA didn't exit in such a situation
it would be necessary to restart
.B pmcd
because if the PMDA was still running
.B pmcd
would not restart it.
.P
Normally
.B pmcd
listens for client connections on TCP/IP port number 4321. The environment
variable
.B PMCD_PORT
may be used to specify an alternative port number. If
.B PMCD_PORT
is used, care should be taken to ensure the environment variable is set before
.B pmcd
is started, and also in the environment of any client application that
will connect to
.BR pmcd .
.SH LICENSES
In previous PCP releases,
.B pmcd
would terminate immediately if there was no valid
.I Collector
license on the localhost. This has now changed so that
.B pmcd
will run on hosts without a
.I Collector
license, however an unlicensed
.B pmcd
will only accept connections from authorized clients.
Not all PCP tools are authorized clients. See the PCP release notes for more
details about licenses for PCP.
.SH FILES
.PD 0
.TP 20
.I /etc/pmcd.conf
default configuration file
.TP
.I /etc/config/pmcd
.BR chkconfig (1M)
control flag, to control launching of
.B pmcd
from
.B /etc/init.d/pcp
.TP
.I /etc/config/pmcd.options
command line options to
.B pmcd
when launched from
.B /etc/init.d/pcp
All the command line option lines should start with a hyphen as
the first character.
This file can also contain environment variable settings of
the form "VARIABLE=value".
.TP
.I \&./pmcd.log
(or
.B ${PCP_LOGDIR-/var/adm/pcplog}/pmcd.log
when started automatically)
.br
All messages and diagnostics are directed here
.PD
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B PMCD_PATH
A colon separated list of directories
.B pmcd
will search for DSO agents with relative paths. The default is
.IR "/var/pcp/lib:/usr/pcp/lib" .
.TP
.B PMCD_PORT
TCP/IP port for incoming connections,
defaults to 4321.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR PCPIntro (1),
.BR pmdbg (1),
.BR pmerr (1),
.BR pmgenmap (1),
.BR pminfo (1),
.BR pmkstat (1),
.BR pmstore (1),
.BR pmval (1)
and
.BR dso (5).
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
If
.B pmcd
is already running the message "Error: OpenRequestSocket bind: Address already
in use" will appear.
This may also appear if
.B pmcd
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
.BR pmcd .
.PP
In addition to the standard
.B PCP
debugging flags, see
.BR pmdbg (1),
.B pmcd
currently uses
.B DBG_TRACE_APPL0
for tracing I/O and termination of agents,
.B DBG_TRACE_APPL1
for tracing host access control (see below) and
.B DBG_TRACE_APPL2
for tracing the configuration file scanner and parser.
.SH CAVEATS
.B pmcd
does not kill its child agents, it only closes their pipes.
If an agent never
checks for a closed pipe it may not terminate.
.PP
The configuration file parser will only read lines of less than 1200
characters.
This is intended to prevent accidents with binary files.
.PP
The timeouts controlled by the
.B \-t
option apply to IPC between
.B pmcd
and the PMDAs it spawns. This is independent of settings of the
environment variables
.B PMCD_CONNECT_TIMEOUT
and
.B PMCD_REQUEST_TIMEOUT
(see
.BR PCPIntro (1))
which may be used respectively to control timeouts for client applications
trying to connect to
.B pmcd
and trying to receive information from
.BR pmcd .