pmdastatsd(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | CONFIGURATION | INSTALLATION | USAGE | FILES | PCP ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PMDASTATSD(1)            General Commands Manual           PMDASTATSD(1)

NAME         top

       pmdastatsd - StatsD protocol performance metric domain agent
       (PMDA)

SYNOPSIS         top

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd/pmdastatsd [-Z maximum udp packet size] [-P
       port] [-v] [-g] [-o debug output filename] [-s] [-r parser type]
       [-a port] [-z maximum of unprocessed packets]

DESCRIPTION         top

       StatsD is simple, text-based UDP protocol for receiving
       monitoring data of applications in architecture client-server.
       pmdastatsd is an Performance Metrics Domain Agent that collects
       StatsD data, aggregates them and makes them available to any
       Performance Co-Pilot client, which is ideal for easily tracking
       stats in your application.

       The statsd PMDA supports Counter, Gauge and Duration (with
       instances for minimum, maximum, median, average, 90th percentile,
       95th percentile, 99th percentile, count and standard deviation)
       metric types, offers multiple parsing options: Ragel or
       handwritten/custom parser, offers multiple aggregating options
       for duration metric type: basic histogram or HDR histogram,
       supports custom form of labels, logging, exports multiple metrics
       about itself and may be configured either with an ini file or
       command line options.

CONFIGURATION         top

       A brief description of the pmdastatsd command line options
       follows:

       -Z, --max-udp=<value>
            Maximum allowed packet size, any larger then this will be
            thrown away.  Default: 1472

       -P, --port=<value>
            Which port agent will listen to for incoming traffic.
            Default: 8125

       -v, --verbose
            Verbosity level.  Prints info about agent execution into
            logfile. Valid values are 0-2. 0 = Default value, shows
            config information, read socket state, and first 100 dropped
            messages. 1 = Shows PMNS and related information. 2 = Most
            detailed verbosity level, also shows dropped messages above
            100.  All levels include those below.

       -o, --debug-output-filename=<value>
            You can send USR1 signal that 'asks' agent to output basic
            information about all aggregated metric into a
            $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/statsd_{name} file.  Default: 0

       -s, --version
            Flag controlling whether or not to log current agent version
            on start.  Default: 0

       -p, --parser-type=<value>
            Flag specifying which parser to use for incoming packets;
            Basic = 0, Ragel = 1.  Ragel parser includes better logging
            when verbose = 2.  Default: 0

       -a, --duration-aggregation-type=<value>
            Flag specifying which aggregation scheme to use for duration
            metrics; basic histogram = 0, HDR histogram = 1.  Default: 1

       -z, -max-unprocessed-packets=<value>
            Maximum size of packet queue that the agent will save in
            memory.  There are 2 queues: one for packets that are
            waiting to be parsed and one for parsed packets before they
            are aggregated.  Default: 2048

       The agent also looks for a pmdastatsd.ini file in the
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd directory.  There, the same options may be
       specified, albeit with slightly different names as follows:

            max_udp_packet_size=<value>
            port=<value>
            verbose=<value>
            debug=<value>
            debug_output_filename=<value>
            version=<value>
            parser_type=<value>
            duration_aggregation_type=<value>
            max_unprocessed_packets=<value>

       Should an option be specified in both pmdastatsd.ini and command
       line, then the latter takes precedence.  Most of the time you
       will want to configure the agent with an ini file, as the agent
       should never be executed directly.

       Location of the log file.  By default, a log file named
       statsd.log is written in the current directory of pmcd(1) when
       pmdastatsd is started, i.e.  $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd.  If the log file
       cannot be created or is not writable, output is written to
       standard error instead.

INSTALLATION         top

       If you want to install the pmdastatsd, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd
            # ./Install

       To uninstall, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd
            # ./Remove

       pmdastatsd is launched by pmcd(1) and should never be executed
       directly.  The Install and Remove scripts notify pmcd(1) when the
       agent is installed or removed.

USAGE         top

       Once started, pmdastatsd will listen on specified port for any
       content in a form of:

           <metricname>:<value>|<type>

       There may be multiple such messages in single datagram, split by
       a newline character, so this:

           <metricname>:<value>|<type>\n<metricname>:<value>|<type>

       is valid as well.  Constraints for each of the above variables
       are:

           <metricname> = [a-z][a-zA-Z0-9_.]*
           <value> = described further in each metric type subsection
           <type> = One of the following: c , g or ms

       If verbose logging is turned on, agent will log every message
       parsed and related failures.

       All recorded metrics will, if parsed and aggregated successfully,
       be made available under statsd.*  namespace.

   1 Counter metric
       Stores metrics as simple counters, adding any incoming values to
       already existing ones.

           <metricname>:<value>|c

       Where value is positive number.

       Example:

       After aggregating following messages:

           metric:20|c
           metric:10|c
           metric:3.3|c

       Value available to PCP will be:

           # pminfo --fetch statsd.metric

               inst [0 or '/'] value 33.3

   2 Gauge metric
       Stores metrics as modifiable values, with an option to either
       set, increment or decrement values.

           <metricname>:<value>|g

       Where value can be in a form of:

           '-{value}', when negative value is supplied agent will
           subtract value stored with the value passed

           '+{value}', when positive value with a leading plus sign is
           supplied, the agent will add the passed value to the value
           stored

           '{value}', when a value without any leading sign is supplied,
           the agent will set the metric to the passed value.

       Initial value for metric of gauge type is 0.

       Example:

       After aggregating following messages:

           metric:20|g
           metric:+10|g
           metric:-3.3|g

       Value available to PCP will be:

           # pminfo --fetch statsd.metric

               inst [0 or '/'] value 26.7

   3 Duration metric
       Aggregates values either via HDR histogram or simply stores all
       values and then calculates instances from all values received.

           <metricname>:<value>|ms

       Where value is a positive number.

       Example:

       With larger message count, the values may vary based on selected
       duration aggregation scheme.

       After aggregating following messages:

           metric:10|ms
           metric:20|ms

       Values available to PCP will be:

           # pminfo --fetch statsd.metric

               inst[0 or '/min'] value 10
               inst[1 or '/max'] value 20
               inst[2 or '/median'] value 10
               inst[3 or '/average'] value 15
               inst[4 or '/percentile90'] value 20
               inst[5 or '/percentile95'] value 20
               inst[6 or '/percentile99'] value 20
               inst[7 or '/count'] value 2
               inst[8 or '/std_deviation'] value 5

       Note:

       Once you send given metricname with specified type, the agent
       will no longer aggregate any messages with same.  metricname but
       different type and will throw them away.

   4 Labels
       StatsD datagrams may also contain key:value pairs separated by
       commas like so:

           metric,tagX=X,tagW=W:5|c

           OR

           metric:5|ms|#tagX:X,tagW:W

       Where tagX is a key, X is a value and tagW is a key, W is a
       value.

       Both key and value of such a pair are [a-ZA-Z0-9_.]{1,}.

       Both formats are interchangeable and you may combine them
       together.  When key is not unique, right most value takes
       precedence.  This is valid:

           metric,tagX=1:5|c|#tagX:2

       Pair with key tagX will have value of 2.

       You may use these labels to map specific values to some PCP
       instances.  PCP labels are also assigned to these PCP instances.
       Pairs are ordered by key in resulting instance name and label
       descriptor.

       Single label:

           metric,tagX=X:5|c

       Such a payload would map to PCP as follows (non-related labels
       were omitted):

           # pminfo --fetch --labels statsd.metric

               inst [0 or '/tagX=X'] value 5
               inst [0 or '/tagX=X'] labels {'tagX':'X'}

       As shown earlier you may also send payload with multiple labels.
       When multiple labels are supplied they are split in instance name
       by '::'.  Example:

           metric,tagX=X,tagW=W:5|c

       This resolves to:

           # pminfo --fetch --labels statsd.metric

               inst [0 or '/tagX=X::tagW=W'] value 5
               inst [0 or '/tagX=X::tagW=W'] labels {'tagX':'X','tagW':'W'}

       Note:

       Be mindful of the fact that duration metric type already maps to
       instances even without any labels.  Sending labeled value to such
       a metric creates another 9 (as there are that many hardcoded)
       instances.

       Example:

           metric:200|ms
           metric:100|ms
           metric,target=cpu2:10|ms
           metric,target=cpu2:100|ms
           metric,target=cpu2:1000|ms

       Creates 18 instances.  Duration data type and label name compose
       instance name in following manner:

           # pminfo --fetch --labels statsd.metric

               ...
               inst [10 or '/max::target=cpu0'] value 1000
               inst [10 or '/max::target=cpu0'] labels {'target':'cpu0'}
               ...

   5 Hardcoded stats
       Agent also exports metrics about itself:

       statsd.pmda.received
            Number of datagrams that the agent has received

       statsd.pmda.parsed
            Number of datagrams that were successfully parsed

       statsd.pmda.dropped
            Number of datagrams that were dropped

       statsd.pmda.aggregated
            Number of datagrams that were aggregated

       statsd.pmda.metrics_tracked
            This metric has 3 instances.  counter - Number of tracked
            counter metrics.  gauge - Number of tracked gauge metrics.
            duration - Number of tracked duration metrics.  total -
            Number of tracked metrics total.

       statsd.pmda.time_spent_parsing
            Total time in microseconds spent parsing metrics. Includes
            time spent parsing a datagram and failing midway.

       statsd.pmda.time_spent_aggregating
            Total time in microseconds spent aggregating metrics.
            Includes time spent aggregating a metric and failing midway.

       statsd.pmda.settings.max_udp_packet_size
            Maximum UDP packet size

       statsd.pmda.settings.max_unprocessed_packets
            Maximum size of unprocessed packets Q

       statsd.pmda.settings.verbose
            Verbosity flag

       statsd.pmda.settings.debug_output_filename
            Debug output filename

       statsd.pmda.settings.port
            Port that is listened to

       statsd.pmda.settings.parser_type
            Used parser type

       statsd.pmda.settings.duration_aggregation_type
            Used duration aggregation type

       These names are blacklisted for user usage.  No messages with
       these names will processed.  While not yet reserved, the whole
       statsd.pmda.*  namespace is not recommended to use for user
       metrics.

FILES         top

       $PCP_PMCDCONF_PATH
              command line options used to launch pmdastatsd
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd/Install
              installation script for the pmdastatsd agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/statsd/Remove
              undo installation script for the pmdastatsd agent
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/statsd.log
              default log file for error messages and other information
              from pmdastatsd

PCP ENVIRONMENT         top

       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).

SEE ALSO         top

       PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).

COLOPHON         top

       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 [email protected].  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/performancecopilot/pcp.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2024-06-14.)  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
       [email protected]

Performance Co-Pilot               PCP                     PMDASTATSD(1)