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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | VIEWS | TABS | IMAGES and PRINTING | RECORDING | CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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PMCHART(1) General Commands Manual PMCHART(1)
pmchart - strip chart tool for Performance Co-Pilot
pmchart [-CVWz] [-A align] [-a archive] [-c configfile] [-f
fontfamily] [-F fontsize] [-g geometry] [-h host] [-o outfile] [-O
offset] [-p port] [-s samples] [-S starttime] [-T endtime] [-t
interval] [-v visible] [-Z timezone] [-geometry geometry]
[sources...]
pmchart is a graphical utility that plots performance metrics values
available through the facilities of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).
Multiple charts can be displayed simultaneously, either aligned on
the unified time axis (X-axis), and through the use of multiple
interface Tabs.
Metric values can be sourced from one or more live hosts
(simultaneously). Alternatively, one or more sets of PCP archives
can be used as a source of historical data. See PCPIntro(1) for an
in-depth discussion of the capabilities of the PCP framework, many of
which are used by pmchart.
Many aspects of the behaviour of pmchart can be customised through
the interface. In particular, the use of "views" (refer to the
section describing VIEWS later in this document) allows predefined
sets of metrics and charting parameters like colors, scaling, titles,
legends, and so on to be stored for later use, or use with different
hosts and sets of archives. In addition, the Preferences dialog
allows customisations to the rest of the pmchart user interface to be
saved and restored between different invocations of the tool. This
allows the default background color, highlight color, contents and
location of the toolbar, and many other aspects to be configured.
pmchart makes extensive use of the pmtime(1) utility for time
control, refer to the pmtime manual page for further details of its
operation.
Options which control the default source, timing and layout of the
pmchart window are as follows:
-a Performance metric values are retrieved from the set of
Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) archive logs identified by this
option, by default. The argument is a comma-separated list of
names, each of which may be the base name of an archive or the
name of a directory containing one or more archives. The
resulting set of archives will be the source of the performance
metrics. The initial Tab created will be an archive mode Tab.
Multiple -a options can be presented, and the resulting list of
sets of archives is used for sourcing metric values. Any
sources listed on the command line are assumed to be sets of
archives if this option is used.
-c configfile specifies an initial view to load, using the default
source of metrics. Multiple -c views can be specified, and they
will all be opened in the default Tab with the default source of
metrics.
-C Used with -c, the view(s) are parsed, any errors are reported,
and the tool exits. This is primarily intended for testing
purposes. If a second -C option is presented, pmchart also
connects to pmcd(1) to check the semantics of metrics.
-f Specify the default font family to be used in several chart
components, such as the chart title, legend, and Y-axis label.
The default value is "Sans Serif". This setting does not affect
the rest of the user interface, where the value is inherited
from the environment in which pmchart operates, and differs
according to the look-and-feel of each platform.
-F Specify the default font point size to be used in several chart
components, such as the chart title, legend, and Y-axis label.
The default is platform dependent, but is either 7, 8 or 9.
This setting does not affect the rest of the user interface.
-g Generate image with the specified geometry (width and height).
This option is only useful when used in conjunction with the -o
option for generating an output image. The geometry argument
takes the form "WxH" (e.g. 240x120). When NOT using the -o
flag, to specify the display window geometry, use -geometry
geometry where geometry specifies the desired window width,
height and optional placement.
-h Current performance metric values are retrieved from the
nominated host machine by default. Multiple -h options can be
presented, and the list of hosts is used for sourcing metric
values. Any sources listed on the command line are assumed to
be hosts if this option is used.
-o Generate an image file named outfile, and then exit. This is
most useful when run with a set of archives and one or more
views. The generated image will be in the format specified as
the file extension (automatically determined from outfile). If
no extension can be determined, then the GIF format is used and
the generated file is named with this extension. The supported
image file formats include: bmp, jpeg, jpg, png, ppm, tif, tiff,
xbm, and xpm.
-p port number for connection to an existing pmtime time control
process.
-s Specifies the number of samples that will be retained before
discarding old data (replaced by new values at the current time
position). This value can subsequently be modified through the
Edit Tab dialog.
-t Sets the inital update interval to something other than the
default 1 second. The interval argument follows the syntax
described in PCPIntro(1), and in the simplest form may be an
unsigned integer (the implied units in this case are seconds).
-v Sets the inital visible samples that will be displayed in all
charts in the default Tab. This value must be less than or
equal to the total number of samples retained (the -s value).
-V Display pmchart version number and exit
-W Export images using an opaque(white) background
-Z By default, pmtime reports the time of day according to the
local timezone on the system where pmchart is run. The -Z
option changes the timezone to timezone in the format of the
environment variable TZ as described in environ(7).
-z Change the reporting timezone to the local timezone at the host
that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified via
either the -h or -a options.
The -S, -T, -O and -A options may be used to define a time window to
restrict the samples retrieved, set an initial origin within the time
window, or specify a "natural" alignment of the sample times; refer
to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of these options.
The primary pmchart configuration file is the "view", which allows
the metadata associated with one or more charts to be saved in the
filesystem. This metadata describes all aspects of the charts,
including which PCP metrics and instances are to be used, which
hosts, which colors, the chart titles, use of chart legends, and much
more.
From a conceptual point of view, there are two classes of view.
These views share the same configuration file format - refer to a
later section for a complete description of this format. The
differences lie in where they are installed and how they are
manipulated.
The first class, the "system" view, is simply any view that is
installed as part of the pmchart package. These are stored in
$PCP_VAR_DIR/config/pmchart. When the File→Open View dialog is
displayed, it is these views that are initially listed. The system
views cannot be modified by a normal user, and should not be modified
even by a user with suitable privileges, as they will be overwritten
during an upgrade.
The second class of view is the "user" view. These views are created
on-the-fly using the File→Save View dialog. This is a mechanism for
individual users to save their commonly used views. Access to these
views is achieved through the File→Open View dialog, as with the
system views. Once the dialog is opened, the list of views can be
toggled between user and system views by clicking on the two toggle
buttons in the top right corner. User views are stored in
$HOME/.pcp/pmchart.
pmchart provides the common user interface concept of the Tab, which
is most prevalent in modern web browsers. Tabs allow pmchart to
update many more charts than the available screen real estate allows,
by providing a user interface mechanism to stack (and switch between)
different vertical sets of charts. Switching between Tabs is
achieved by clicking on the Tab labels, which are located along the
top of the display beneath the Menu and Tool bars).
Each Tab has a mode of operation (either live or archive - pmchart
can support both modes simultaneously), the total number of samples
and currently visible points, and a label describing the Tab which is
displayed at the top of the pmchart window. New Tabs can be created
using the File→Add Tab dialog.
In order to save on vertical screen real estate, note that the user
interface element for changing between different Tabs (and its label)
are only displayed when more than one Tab exists. A Tab can be
dismissed using the File→Close Tab menu, which removes the current
Tab and any charts it contained.
A static copy of the currently displayed vertical series of charts
can be captured in two ways.
When the intended display device is the screen, the File→Export menu
option should be used. This allows exporting the charts in a variety
of image formats, including PNG, JPEG, GIF, and BMP. The image size
can be scaled up or down in any dimension.
Alternatively, when the intended display device is paper, the
File→Print menu option can be used. This supports the usual set of
printing options (choice of printer, grayscale/color,
landscape/portrait, scaling to different paper sizes, etc), and in
addition allows printing to the intermediate printer formats of
PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF).
It is possible to make a recording of a set of displayed charts, for
later playback through pmchart or any of the other Performance Co-
Pilot tools. The Record→Start functionality is simple to configure
through the user interface, and allows fine-tuning of the recording
process (including record frequencies that differ to the pmchart
update interval, alternate file locations, etc).
pmchart produces recordings that are compatible with the PCP pmafm(1)
replay mechanism, for later playback via a new instance of pmchart.
In addition, when recording through pmchart one can also replay the
recording immediately, as on termination of the recording (through
the Record→Stop menu item), an archive mode Tab will be created with
the captured view.
Once recording is active in a Live Tab, the Time Control status
button in the bottom left corner of the pmchart window is displayed
with a distinctive red dot. At any time during a pmchart recording
session, the amount of space used in the filesystem by that recording
can be displayed using the Record→Query menu item.
Finally, the Record→Detach menu option provides a mechanism whereby
the recording process can be completely divorced from the running
pmchart process, and allowed to continue on when pmchart exits. A
dialog displaying the current size and estimated rate of growth for
the recording is presented. On the other hand, if pmchart is
terminated while recording is in process, then the recording process
will prompt the user to choose immediate cessation of recording or
for it to continue on independently.
All of the record mode services available from pmchart are
implemented with the assistance of the base Performance Co-Pilot
logging services - refer to pmlogger(1) and pmafm(1) for an extensive
description of the capabilities of these tools.
pmchart loads predefined chart configurations (or "views") from
external files that conform to the following rules. In the
descriptions below keywords (shown in bold) may appear in upper,
lower or mixed case, elements shown in [stuff] are optional, and
user-supplied elements are shown as <other stuff>. A vertical bar
(|) is used where syntactic elements are alternatives. Quotes (")
may be used to enclose lexical elements that may contain white space,
such as titles, labels and instance names.
1. The first line defines the configuration file type and should be
#kmchart
although pmchart provides backwards compatibility for the older
pmchart view formats with an initial line of
#pmchart
2. After the first line, lines beginning with "#" as the first non-
white space character are treated as comments and skipped.
Similarly blank lines are skipped.
3. The next line should be
version <n> <host-clause>
where <n> depends on the configuration file type, and is 1 for
pmchart else 1.1, 1.2 or 2.0 for pmchart.
The <host-clause> part is optional (and ignored) for pmchart
configuration files, but required for the pmchart configuration
files, and is of the form
host literal
or
host dynamic
4. A configuration contains one or more charts defined as follows:
chart [title <title>] style <style> <options>
If specified, the title will appear centred and above the graph
area of the chart. The <title> is usually enclosed in quotes (")
and if it contains the sequence "%h" this will be replaced by the
short form of the hostname for the default source of metrics at
the time this chart was loaded. Alternatively, "%H" can be used
to insert the full host name. If the hostname appears to be an
inet or IPv6 address, no shortening will be attempted; it will be
used as-is in both replacement cases. After the view is loaded,
the title visibility and setting can be manipulated using the
Chart Title text box in the Edit→Chart dialog.
The <style> controls the initial plotting style of the chart, and
should be one of the keywords plot (line graph), bar, stacking
(stacked bar), area or utilization. After the view is loaded, the
plotting style can be changed using the Edit→Chart Style dropdown
list.
The <options> are zero or more of the optional elements:
[scale [from] <ymin> [to] <ymax>] [legend <onoff>]
If scale is specified, the vertical scaling is set for all plots
in the chart to a y-range defined by <ymin> and <ymax>. Otherwise
the vertical axis will be autoscaled based on the values currently
being plotted.
<onoff> is one of the keywords on or off and the legend clause
controls the presence or absence of the plot legend below the
graph area. The default is for the legend to be shown. After the
view is loaded, the legend visibility can be toggled using the
Show Legend button in the Edit→Chart dialog.
5. pmchart supports a global clause to specify the dimensions of the
top-level window (using the width and height keywords), the number
of visible points (points keyword) and the starting X and Y axis
positions on the screen (xpos and ypos keywords). Each of these
global attributes takes an integer value as the sole qualifier.
6. Each chart has one or more plots associated with it, as defined by
one of the following specifications:
plot
[legend <title>] [color <colorspec>] [host <hostspec>]
metric <metricname>
[ instance <inst> | matching <pat> | not-matching <pat> ]
The keyword plot may be replaced with the keyword optional-plot,
in which case if the source of performance data does not include
the specified performance metric and/or instance, then this plot
is silently dropped from the chart.
If specified, the title will appear in the chart legend. The
<title> is usually enclosed in quotes (") and it may contain one
or more wildcard characters which will be expanded using metric
name, instance name, and host name for the plot. The wildcards
are "%i" (short unique instance name, up to the first whitespace),
"%I" (full instance name), "%h" (short host name, up to the first
dot), %H (full host name), "%m" (metric name shortened to the
final two PMNS components), and "%M" (full metric name).
For older pmchart configuration files, the keyword title must be
used instead of legend. Nowadays pmchart supports either keyword.
The color clause is optional for newer pmchart configuration
files, but it was mandatory in the original pmchart configuration
file format. <colorspec> may be one of the following:
#-cycle
rgbi:rr:gg:bb
#rgb
#rrggbb
#rrrgggbbb
#rrrrggggbbbb
<Xcolor>
where each of r, g and b are hexadecimal digits (0-9 and A-F)
representing respectively the red, green and blue color
components. <Xcolor> is one of the color names from the X color
database, e.g. red or steelblue, see also the output from
showrgb(1).
The "color" #-cycle specifies that pmchart should use the next in
a pallet of colors that it uses cyclically for each chart. This
is the default if the color clause is omitted.
The <hostspec> in the host clause may be a hostname, an IP address
or an asterisk (*); the latter is used to mean the default source
of performance metrics. For older pmchart configuration files,
the host clause must be present, for new pmchart configuration
files it is optional, and if missing the default source of
performance metrics will be used.
The optional instance specification,
(a)
is omitted in which case one plot will be created for every
instance of the <metricname> metric
(b)
starts with instance, in which case only the instance named
<inst> will be plotted
(c)
starts with matching, in which case all instances whose names
match the pattern <pat> will be plotted; the pattern uses
extended regular expression notation in the style of egrep(1)
(refer to the PMCD view for an example)
(d)
starts with not-matching, in which case all instances whose
names do not match the pattern <pat> will be plotted; the
pattern uses extended regular expression notation in the style
of egrep(1) (refer to the Netbytes view for an example)
pmchart uses a bizarre syntactic notation where <inst> and <pat>
extend from the first non-white space character to the end of the
input line. For pmchart configuration files these elements are
either delimited by white space, or enclosed in quotes (").
7. The optional tab directive can be used to create views with
multiple charts which span multiple Tabs. The syntax is as
follows:
tab <label> [host <host>] [points <points> [samples <samples>]]
All chart specifications following this keyword will be created
on the new Tab, until the end of the configuration file or until
another tab keyword is encountered.
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).
Of particular note, the $PCP_XCONFIRM_PROG setting is explicitly and
unconditionally overridden by pmchart. This is set to the
pmconfirm(1), utility, in order that some popup dialogs (particularly
in the area of Recording) maintain a consistent look-and-feel with
the rest of the pmchart application.
pmtime(1), pmconfirm(1), pmdumptext(1), PCPIntro(1), pmafm(1),
pmrep(1), pmval(1), pmcd(1), pminfo(1), pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and
pmns(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
2018-02-02. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
was found in the repository was 2018-02-02.) 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 PMCHART(1)
Pages that refer to this page: ganglia2pcp(1), iostat2pcp(1), mkaf(1), mrtg2pcp(1), pcp2elasticsearch(1), pcp2graphite(1), pcp2influxdb(1), pcp2json(1), pcp2xlsx(1), pcp2xml(1), pcp2zabbix(1), pcpintro(1), pcp-iostat(1), pcp-tapestat(1), pmafm(1), pmclient(1), pmdaweblog(1), pmdumptext(1), pminfo(1), pmlogsummary(1), pmquery(1), pmrep(1), pmsnap(1), pmtime(1), pmval(1), sar2pcp(1), sheet2pcp(1), pmparsehostattrsspec(3), pmparsehostspec(3), pmregisterderived(3), LOGARCHIVE(5), pmview(5)
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