|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|
|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | STARTING AND STOPPING PMPROXY | DIAGNOSTICS | FILES | ENVIRONMENT | PCP ENVIRONMENT | DEBUGGING OPTIONS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
PMPROXY(1) General Commands Manual PMPROXY(1)
pmproxy - proxy for performance metrics collector and querying
pmproxy [-AdfFt?] [-c conffile] [-D debug] [-h host[,host ...]
[-i ipaddress] [-l logfile] [-L bytes] [-p port[,port ...] [-r
port[,port ...] [-s sockname] [-U username] [-x outfile]
pmproxy acts as a protocol proxy, allowing Performance Co-Pilot
(PCP) monitoring clients to connect to one or more pmcd(1) and/or
key-value servers (such as https://valkey.io/ ) indirectly.
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 key-value server (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 a key-value server (such as
https://valkey.io/ ) 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 a key-value 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 a key-value server indirectly
through the protocol proxy services of pmproxy.
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, --keyhost=host
Specify an alternate key-value server 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, --keyport=port
Specify an alternate key-value server 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 key-value
server (such as https://valkey.io/ ), 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 key-value server 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.
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 [http] section provides fine-tuning over HTTP server settings
used by pmproxy. chunksize sets the chunked transfer encoding
buffer size, and defaults to the system pagesize. Access control
HTTP protocol settings can be adjusted using the Access-Control-
Allow-Headers and Access-Control-Max-Age options. Discussion of
these HTTP protocol headers is beyond the scope of this document,
but suitable default values are described within the pmproxy.conf
configuration file.
The [keys] section allows connection information for one or more
backing key-value server processes to be configured (hostnames and
ports). Note to access multiple (scalable) key-value servers, the
servers variable in this section can be a comma-separated list of
hostname:port pairs. Alternatively, it can be a single key-value
server host that will be queried using the "CLUSTER INFO" command
to automatically configure multiple backing hosts.
In earlier versions of PCP (before 6) an alternative configuration
setting section was used for this purpose - key-value servers were
specified in the [pmseries] section and this is still accepted as
a fallback for backwards compatibility.
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).
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.
$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.
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.
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).
The -D or --debug option enables the output of additional
diagnostics on stderr to help triage problems, although the
information is sometimes cryptic and primarily intended to provide
guidance for developers rather end-users. debug is a comma
separated list of debugging options; use pmdbg(1) with the -l
option to obtain a list of the available debugging options and
their meaning.
Debugging options specific to pmproxy are as follows:
┌────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Option │ Description │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ appl0 │ client connections and disconnections │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ appl1 │ desperate logging mode, where a period followed by │
│ │ the PID of pmproxy is inserted in the name of logfile │
│ │ before the last period, so for example pmproxy.log │
│ │ becomes pmproxy.<pid>.log │
├────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ appl2 │ log incoming HTTP URLs (this is also enabled by the │
│ │ http debugging option, but the latter has broader │
│ │ scope because it turns on debugging in the libraries │
│ │ that pmproxy uses) │
└────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdbg(1), pmlogger(1), pmseries(1),
PMAPI(3), PMWEBAPI(3), pmGetOptions(3), pcp.conf(5) and
pcp.env(5).
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 2025-08-11.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2025-08-11.) 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 PMPROXY(1)
Pages that refer to this page: pcp-check(1), pcpcompat(1), pcpintro(1), pcp-kube-pods(1), pmfind(1), pmlogger(1), pmlogger_daily(1), pmlogpush(1), pmsearch(1), pmseries(1), pmseries_import(1), pmsocks(1), pmdiscoverservices(3), pmdiscoversetup(3), pmnewcontext(3), pmparsehostattrsspec(3), pmparsehostspec(3), pmsearchinfo(3), pmsearchsetup(3), pmsearchtextindom(3), pmsearchtextquery(3), pmsearchtextsuggest(3), pmseriesdescs(3), pmseriesquery(3), pmseriessetup(3), pmwebapi(3), pmwebtimerregister(3), labels.conf(5), pmlogger.control(5)
|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|