DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / pcp / pmlogmv.1.en
PMLOGMV(1) General Commands Manual PMLOGMV(1)

pmlogmv - move (rename) Performance Co-Pilot archive files

pmlogmv [-cfNV?] oldname newname

A Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) archive consists of multiple files as created by pmlogger(1). pmlogmv allows all the files of a single PCP archive to be moved or renamed as a group in a single operation.

The oldname argument identifies the target archive, and may be either the basename that is common to all files in that archive or one of the archive's files. The new archive's basename is newname.

Because PCP archives are important records of system activity, special care is taken to ensure the integrity of an archive's files. For recoverable problems encountered during the execution of pmlogmv, all the files associated with oldname will be preserved, and no new files with the newname prefix will be created. ``Recoverable problems'' include signals that can be caught (such as SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGQUIT and SIGTERM), permissions issues, new files already existing, file system full events, etc.

The implementation of pmlogmv tries to use hard links in the file system and so follows the semantic restrictions of ln(2) which for most systems means the directories containing both the oldname and the newname PCP archive files need to be within the same file system. When this is not possible, pmlogmv falls back to using cp(1) to copy oldname to newname.

The available command line options are:

Paranoid checking mode when cp(1) is needed and each file's checksum is computed for the original file and the copied file, and the checksums must match before the copy is considered acceptable. The checksum command is chosen by trying the following in turn until one is found to be executable: md5sum(1), sha256sum(1), sha1sum(1) and sum(1). If no executable checksum command is found, a warning is issued and the checksum check is skipped.
Normally pmlogmv takes a conservative view in respect of newname and will not proceed if newname contains any characters that are likely to cause a problem for sh(1). This includes ``glob'' characters like ``?'', ``*'' and ``['', shell syntax meta characters like ``('', ``|'', ``;'' and ``&'', shell I/O redirection characters like ``<'' and ``>'', the dollar sign, a space, etc.

The -f flag forces pmlogmv to proceed, even if newname contains any of these ``unsafe'' characters.

Perform a dry-run, checking and reporting what changes would be made without making any changes.
Enable verbose mode.
-?, --help
Display usage message and exit.

All error and warning messages are intended to be easily understood and errors produce a non-zero exit status.

cp(1), ln(1), md5sum(1), PCPIntro(1), pmlogger(1), sha1sum(1), sha256sum(1) and LOGARCHIVE(5).

PCP Performance Co-Pilot