DOKK / manpages / debian 10 / pcp / pcp2json.1.en
PCP2JSON(1) General Commands Manual PCP2JSON(1)

pcp2json - pcp-to-json metrics exporter

pcp2json [-5CEGHIjLnrRvVxXz?] [-4 action] [-8|-9 limit] [-a archive] [--archive-folio folio] [-A align] [-b|-B space-scale] [-c config] [--container container] [--daemonize] [-e derived] [-f format] [-F outfile] [-h host] [-i instances] [-J rank] [-K spec] [-N predicate] [-O origin] [-P|-0 precision] [-q|-Q count-scale] [-s samples] [-S starttime] [-t interval] [-T endtime] [-y|-Y time-scale] [-Z timezone] metricspec [...]

pcp2json is a customizable performance metrics exporter tool from PCP to JSON. Any available performance metric, live or archived, system and/or application, can be selected for exporting using either command line arguments or a configuration file.

pcp2json is a close relative of pmrep(1). Please refer to pmrep(1) for the metricspec description accepted on pcp2json command line and pmrep.conf(5) for description of the pcp2json.conf configuration file overall syntax, this page describes pcp2json specific options and configuration file differences with pmrep.conf(5). pmrep(1) also lists some usage examples of which most are applicable with pcp2json as well.

Only the command line options listed on this page are supported, other options recognized by pmrep(1) are not supported.

Options via environment values (see pmGetOptions(3)) override the corresponding built-in default values (if any). Configuration file options override the corresponding environment variables (if any). Command line options override the corresponding configuration file options (if any).

pcp2json uses a configuration file with overall syntax described in pmrep.conf(5). The following options are common with pmrep.conf: version, source, speclocal, derived, header, globals, samples, interval, type, type_prefer, ignore_incompat, names_change, instances, live_filter, rank, limit_filter, limit_filter_force, invert_filter, predicate, omit_flat, precision, precision_force, count_scale, count_scale_force, space_scale, space_scale_force, time_scale, time_scale_force. The output option is recognized but ignored for pmrep.conf compatibility.

extended (boolean)

Write extended information about metrics. Corresponding command line option is -x. Default is no.

everything (boolean)

Write everything known about metrics, including PCP internal IDs. Corresponding command line option is -X. Default is no.

exact_types (boolean)

Write numbers as number data types, not as strings, potentially losing some precision. Corresponding command line option is -E. Default is no.

The available command line options are:

-0 precision, --precision-force=precision
Like -P but this option will override per-metric specifications.
-4 action, --names-change=action
Specify which action to take on receiving a metric names change event during sampling. These events occur when a PMDA discovers new metrics sometime after starting up, and informs running client tools like pcp2json. Valid values for action are update (refresh metrics being sampled), ignore (do nothing - the default behaviour) and abort (exit the program if such an event happens).
-5, --ignore-unknown
Silently ignore any metric name that cannot be resolved. At least one metric must be found for the tool to start.
-8 limit, --limit-filter=limit
Limit results to instances with values above/below limit. A positive integer will include instances with values at or above the limit in reporting. A negative integer will include instances with values at or below the limit in reporting. A value of zero performs no limit filtering. This option will not override possible per-metric specifications. See also -J and -N.
-9 limit, --limit-filter-force=limit
Like -8 but this option will override per-metric specifications.
Performance metric values are retrieved from the set of Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) archive log files identified by the argument archive, which 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.
Read metric source archives from the PCP archive folio created by tools like pmchart(1) or, less often, manually with mkaf(1).
Force the initial sample to be aligned on the boundary of a natural time unit align. Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the syntax for align.
Unit/scale for space (byte) metrics, possible values include bytes, Kbytes, KB, Mbytes, MB, and so forth. This option will not override possible per-metric specifications. See also pmParseUnitsStr(3).
Like -b but this option will override per-metric specifications.
Specify the config file to use. The default is the first found of: ./pcp2json.conf, $HOME/.pcp2json.conf, $HOME/pcp/pcp2json.conf, and $PCP_SYSCONF_DIR/pcp2json.conf. For details, see the above section and pmrep.conf(5).
Fetch performance metrics from the specified container, either local or remote (see -h).
Exit before reporting any values, but after parsing the configuration and metrics and printing possible headers.
Daemonize on startup.
Specify derived performance metrics. If derived starts with a slash (``/'') or with a dot (``.'') it will be interpreted as a derived metrics configuration file, otherwise it will be interpreted as comma- or semicolon-separated derived metric expressions. For details see pmLoadDerivedConfig(3) and pmRegisterDerived(3).
Use the format string for formatting the timestamp. The format will be used with Python's datetime.strftime method which is mostly the same as that described in strftime(3). The default is %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.
Specify the output file outfile.
Do not include global metrics in reporting (see pmrep.conf(5)).
Fetch performance metrics from pmcd(1) on host, rather than from the default localhost.
Do not print any headers.
Report only the listed instances from current instances (if present, see also -j). By default all instances, present and future, are reported. This is a global option that is used for all metrics unless a metric-specific instance definition is provided as part of a metricspec. By default single-valued ``flat'' metrics without multiple instances are still reported as usual, use -v to change this. Please refer to pmrep(1) for more details on this option.
Ignore incompatible metrics. By default incompatible metrics (that is, their type is unsupported or they cannot be scaled as requested) will cause pcp2json to terminate with an error message. With this option all incompatible metrics are silently omitted from reporting. This may be especially useful when requesting non-leaf nodes of the PMNS tree for reporting.
Perform instance live filtering. This allows capturing all filtered instances even if processes are restarted at some point (unlike without live filtering). Performing live filtering over a huge amount of instances will add some internal overhead so a bit of user caution is advised. See also -n.
Limit results to highest/lowest rank instances of set-valued metrics. A positive integer will include highest valued instances in reporting. A negative integer will include lowest valued instances in reporting. A value of zero performs no ranking. See also -8.
When fetching metrics from a local context (see -L), the -K option may be used to control the DSO PMDAs that should be made accessible. The spec argument conforms to the syntax described in pmSpecLocalPMDA(3). More than one -K option may be used.
Use a local context to collect metrics from DSO PMDAs on the local host without PMCD. See also -K.
Perform ranking before live filtering. By default instance live filtering (when requested, see -j) happens before instance ranking (when requested, see -J). With this option the logic is inverted and ranking happens before live filtering.
Specify a comma-separated list of predicate filter reference metrics. By default ranking (see -J) happens for each metric individually. With predicates, ranking is done only for the specified predicate metrics. When reporting, rest of the metrics sharing the same instance domain (see PCPIntro(1)) as the predicate will include only the highest/lowest ranking instances of the corresponding predicate.

So for example, using proc.memory.rss (resident memory size of process) as the predicate metric together with proc.io.total_bytes and mem.util.used as metrics to be reported, only the processes using most/least (as per -J) memory will be included when reporting total bytes written by processes. Since mem.util.used is a single-valued metric (thus not sharing the same instance domain as the process-related metrics), it will be reported as usual.

When reporting archived metrics, start reporting at origin within the time window (see -S and -T). Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the syntax for origin.
Use precision for numeric non-integer output values. The default is to use 3 decimal places (when applicable). This option will not override possible per-metric specifications.
Unit/scale for count metrics, possible values include count x 10^-1, count, count x 10, count x 10^2, and so forth from 10^-8 to 10^7. (These values are currently space-sensitive.) This option will not override possible per-metric specifications. See also pmParseUnitsStr(3).
Like -q but this option will override per-metric specifications.
Output raw metric values, do not convert cumulative counters to rates. This option will override possible per-metric specifications.
Like -r but this option will not override per-metric specifications.
The argument samples defines the number of samples to be retrieved and reported. If samples is 0 or -s is not specified, pcp2json will sample and report continuously (in real time mode) or until the end of the set of PCP archives (in archive mode). See also -T.
When reporting archived metrics, the report will be restricted to those records logged at or after starttime. Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the syntax for starttime.
The default update interval may be set 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). See also the -T option.
When reporting archived metrics, the report will be restricted to those records logged before or at endtime. Refer to PCPIntro(1) for a complete description of the syntax for endtime.

When used to define the runtime before pcp2json will exit, if no samples is given (see -s) then the number of reported samples depends on interval (see -t). If samples is given then interval will be adjusted to allow reporting of samples during runtime. In case all of -T, -s, and -t are given, endtime determines the actual time pcp2json will run.

Omit single-valued ``flat'' metrics from reporting, only consider set-valued metrics (i.e., metrics with multiple values) for reporting. See -i and -I.
Display version number and exit.
Write extended information.
Write everything known about metrics, including PCP internal IDs.
Unit/scale for time metrics, possible values include nanosec, ns, microsec, us, millisec, ms, and so forth up to hour, hr. This option will not override possible per-metric specifications. See also pmParseUnitsStr(3).
Like -y but this option will override per-metric specifications.
Use the local timezone of the host that is the source of the performance metrics, as identified by either the -h or the -a options. The default is to use the timezone of the local host.
Use timezone for the date and time. Timezone is in the format of the environment variable TZ as described in environ(7). Note that when including a timezone string in output, ISO 8601 -style UTC offsets are used (so something like -Z EST+5 will become UTC-5).
-?, --help
Display usage message and exit.

pcp2json configuration file (see -c)

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).

mkaf(1), PCPIntro(1), pcp(1), pcp2elasticsearch(1), pcp2graphite(1), pcp2influxdb(1), pcp2spark(1), pcp2xlsx(1), pcp2xml(1), pcp2zabbix(1), pmcd(1), pminfo(1), pmrep(1), pmGetOptions(3), pmSpecLocalPMDA(3), pmLoadDerivedConfig(3), pmParseUnitsStr(3), pmRegisterDerived(3), LOGARCHIVE(5), pcp.conf(5), pmns(5), pmrep.conf(5) and environ(7).

PCP Performance Co-Pilot