PMTRACE(1)						      General Commands Manual							PMTRACE(1)

NAME

       pmtrace - command line performance instrumentation

SYNOPSIS

       pmtrace [-q] [-c value | -e command | -v value] [-h host] [-S state] tag

DESCRIPTION

       pmtrace provides a simple command line interface to the trace Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) and the associated pcp_trace library.

       The  default  pmtrace  behavior is to provide point trace data to the trace PMDA, using the tag argument as the identifying name associated
       with each trace point.  The tag then becomes an instance identifier within the set of trace.point metrics.

       The -e option allows an arbitrary command to be executed.  This command will be measured as a transaction since it has well  defined  start
       and end points.	The information is made available through the trace.transact metrics.

       Trace  data can be sent to the trace PMDA running on host, rather than the localhost, using the -h option.  This overrides use of the envi-
       ronment variable PCP_TRACE_HOST.

       The -q option suppresses messages from a successful trace, so that pmtrace runs quietly.

       The -c option allows an arbitrary counter value to be exported through the trace.count metrics, while the -v  option  allows  an  arbitrary
       floating point value to be exported through the trace.observe metrics

       The  -S option enables internal debugging and tracing.  The value of state is a bit-wise combination of debug flags as defined in pmtraces-
       tate(3), and may be specified using the decimal or hexadecimal syntax prescribed by strtol(3).

ENVIRONMENT

       Since pmtrace uses the libpcp_trace library routines, the environment variables PCP_TRACE_HOST, PCP_TRACE_PORT, and  PCP_TRACE_TIMEOUT  are
       all honored.  Refer to pmdatrace(3) for a detailed description of the semantics of each.

FILES

       $PCP_DEMOS_DIR/trace/pmtrace.c
		 source code for pmtrace

PCP ENVIRONMENT

       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	configura-
       tion file, as described in pcp.conf(5).

SEE ALSO

       pmcd(1), pmdatrace(1), pmprobe(1), PMAPI(3), and pmdatrace(3).

DIAGNOSTICS

       All are generated on standard error and are intended to be self-explanatory.

       The pmtrace exit status is always zero except when the -e option is in use, in which case the exit status of command is returned.

Performance Co-Pilot							PCP								PMTRACE(1)