3.3. Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 introduces support for Performance Co-Pilot ( PCP ), a suite of tools, services, and libraries for acquiring, storing, and analyzing system-level performance measurements. Its light-weight distributed architecture makes it particularly well-suited for centralized analysis of complex systems. Performance metrics can be added using the Python, Perl, C++, and C interfaces. Analysis tools can use the client APIs (Python, C++, C) directly, and rich web applications can explore all available performance data using a JSON interface. The Performance Co-Pilot Collection Daemon ( pmcd ) is responsible for collecting performance data on the host system, and various client tools, such as pminfo or pmstat , can be used to retrieve, display, archive, and process this data on the same host or over the network. The pcp package provides the command-line tools and underlying functionality. The graphical tool also requires the pcp-gui package. Resources For information on PCP, see the Index of Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) articles, solutions, tutorials and white papers on the Red Hat Customer Portal. The manual page named PCPIntro serves as an introduction to Performance Co-Pilot. It provides a list of available tools as well as a description of available configuration options and a list of related manual pages. By default, comprehensive documentation is installed in the /usr/share/doc/pcp-doc/ directory, notably the Performance Co-Pilot User's and Administrator's Guide and Performance Co-Pilot Programmer's Guide . If you need to determine what PCP tool has the functionality of an older tool you are already familiar with, see the Side-by-side comparison of PCP tools with legacy tools Red Hat Knowledgebase article. See the official PCP documentation for an in-depth description of the Performance Co-Pilot and its usage. If you want to start using PCP on Red Hat Enterprise Linux quickly, see the PCP Quick Reference Guide . The official PCP website also contains a list of frequently asked questions . Overview of System Services and Tools Provided by PCP Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) provides a large number of command-line tools, graphical tools, and libraries. For more information on these tools, see their respective manual pages. Table 3.1. System Services Distributed with Performance Co-Pilot in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Name Description pmcd The Performance Co-Pilot Collection Daemon (PMCD). pmie The Performance Metrics Inference Engine. pmlogger The performance metrics logger. pmmgr Manages a collection of PCP daemons for a set of discovered local and remote hosts running the Performance Co-Pilot Collection Daemon (PMCD) according to zero or more configuration directories. pmproxy The Performance Co-Pilot Collection Daemon (PMCD) proxy server. pmwebd Binds a subset of the Performance Co-Pilot client API to RESTful web applications using the HTTP protocol. Table 3.2. Tools Distributed with Performance Co-Pilot in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Name Description pcp Displays the current status of a Performance Co-Pilot installation. pmatop Shows the system-level occupation of the most critical hardware resources from the performance point of view: CPU, memory, disk, and network. pmchart Plots performance metrics values available through the facilities of the Performance Co-Pilot. pmclient Displays high-level system performance metrics by using the Performance Metrics Application Programming Interface (PMAPI). pmcollectl Collects and displays system-level data, either from a live system or from a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmdbg Displays available Performance Co-Pilot debug control flags and their values. pmdiff Compares the average values for every metric in either one or two archives, in a given time window, for changes that are likely to be of interest when searching for performance regressions. pmdumplog Displays control, metadata, index, and state information from a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmdumptext Outputs the values of performance metrics collected live or from a Performance Co-Pilot archive. pmerr Displays available Performance Co-Pilot error codes and their corresponding error messages. pmfind Finds PCP services on the network. pmie An inference engine that periodically evaluates a set of arithmetic, logical, and rule expressions. The metrics are collected either from a live system, or from a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmieconf Displays or sets configurable pmie variables. pminfo Displays information about performance metrics. The metrics are collected either from a live system, or from a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmiostat Reports I/O statistics for SCSI devices (by default) or device-mapper devices (with the -x dm option). pmlc Interactively configures active pmlogger instances. pmlogcheck Identifies invalid data in a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmlogconf Creates and modifies a pmlogger configuration file. pmloglabel Verifies, modifies, or repairs the label of a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmlogsummary Calculates statistical information about performance metrics stored in a Performance Co-Pilot archive file. pmprobe Determines the availability of performance metrics. pmrep Reports on selected, easily customizable, performance metrics values. pmsocks Allows access to a Performance Co-Pilot hosts through a firewall. pmstat Periodically displays a brief summary of system performance. pmstore Modifies the values of performance metrics. pmtrace Provides a command line interface to the trace Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA). pmval Displays the current value of a performance metric.

Commands: