NAME
pmview+ - configuration file format for performance met
rics 3D visualization back-end
DESCRIPTION
This man page describes version 2.1 of pmview+ configura
tion file format, which is the extention of pmview(1) con
figuration format version 2.1.
The configuration format supports metrics from multiple
hosts or archives. A configuration file can specify met
rics without a source, with different hosts and different
archives. However, a configuration file that contains
archives may only have one archive for anyone host. When
in ``replay'' mode, any metrics with host specific sources
require an archive to be specified for that host on the
command line or as a source to a previous metric. The
archive must be the same archive (based on a string com
parison of the archive names) of any archives specified in
the configuration file for the same host.
The time controls will list all hosts that are specified
on the command line and the configuration file in the
timezone listing (see pmtime(1)).
The configuration file format is based on a two-dimen
sional grid which can contain a variety of bars, stacks,
links, pipes, labels and other grids. The grids resize
each column and row to match the size of the largest item
in that column or row. A configuration file that contains
only one object does not require a grid. The pmview+ con
figuration file starts with an identification header in
the first non-comment line:
pmview Version 2.1 [command_line]
The optional command_line should be the command line with
which the tool was launched, if the configuration file has
been generated by another tool. This is useful for appli
cations that are to be restarted automatically on the next
login, after the user has logged out while pmview+ was
still running. Care should be taken to ensure that the
command specified is either a full pathname or will be
found on the PATH available at login.
All lines which begin with ``#'' are treated as comments
and ignored. Otherwise, all spaces, tabs and newlines are
treated as white space so multiple commands may be on the
same line.
The syntax for specifying values in the configuration file
is consistent for all commands, namely:
A color must be either a X(1) color name, a X(1)
numerical color, or three normalized real values rep
resenting the saturation of red, green and blue. For
example, the following colors are identical:
red
rgbi:1.0/0.0/0.0
1.0 0.0 0.0
int An integer.
metric
A metric consists of an optional source (host or
archive), the metric name, an optional instance list
immediately after name, followed by the maximum (or
normalization value). A colon (``:'') is used to sep
arate a host name from the metric, and a forward slash
(``/'') to separate an archive name from the metric.
Instances are enclosed in square brackets and comma
separated. Each instance may be enclosed in quotes.
For example, some legal metrics are:
kernel.all.cpu.idle 4000
myhost:kernel.all.cpu.idle[cpu0,"cpu3"] 1000.0
/path/to/myarchive/kernel.all.cpu.idle[cpu1] 1000
To assist the process of matching instance names, two
further comparisons are made beyond a simple string
comparison. If the instance name contains spaces,
only the first word in the instance name is required
to match the instance, assuming that the first word is
unique. If the first word is not unique, only the
first matching instance will be selected. The second
comparison occurs if the first word is a number with
leading zeros. Any leading zeros will be skipped
before comparing the first word again. This permits
process ids used in the proc metrics to be easily
matched, without specifying the entire instance name.
For example, to visualize the user and system time of
init use the metric specification
proc.psusage.utime[1] 1000
proc.psusage.stime[1] 1000
name
A name for an object which may be referred to later in
the configuration file. Names must be a single word
consisting of all alphanumeric characters, as well as
underscores, dashes and colons. It is recommended
that names do not begin with an underscore as this may
be interpreted as a keyword.
The syntax of a position is:
[ [x z] [ [width depth] [alignment] ] ]
x The horizontal coordinate (left to right) of
the object, starting at 0. The default x is
0.
z The vertical coordinate (top to bottom) of
the object, starting at 0. The default z is
0.
width The number of columns occupied by the
object. The default width is 1.
depth The number of rows occupied by the object.
The default depth is 1.
alignment
The edge or corner that the object is
aligned with. Possible alignments include:
north, south, east, west, northeast, north
west, southeast, southwest and center.
Abbreviations like se and SE are also
accepted. The default alignment is center.
The size of an object may not be known as
the number of instances for some metrics
will vary between hosts and PMDA configura
tions. Therefore, the position of the
object can be used to specify the likely
size of the object, so that the position of
the surrounding objects is appropriately
adjusted.
The following are legal positions:
0 5 The object is centered at grid posi
tion 0,5 occupying 1 grid square.
1 2 north
The object is aligned with the north
edge of position 1,2 occupying 1 grid
square.
2 2 2 1 east
The object is aligned to the eastern
edge of position 3,2 and occupies 2
grid squares (2,2 and 3,2).
string
A string is a series of characters enclosed in double
quotes. A string may not contain newlines or escaped
There are several parameters that may affect the size,
shape and color of objects when they are displayed. These
parameters are scoped so that they only alter objects
defined later in the same scope. Therefore, parameter
settings at the top of a configuration file affect the
entire scene, unless they are changed later in the file.
Most of these parameters are also resources.
_barLength int
The side length of the _bar and _stack blocks.
Default is 28.
_barHeight int
The maximum height of a _bar and _stack blocks.
Default is 80.
_baseColor color
The color of _bar, _grid and _stack base planes.
Default is rgbi:0.15/0.15/0.15.
_baseHeight int
The height of _bar, _grid and _stack base planes.
Default is 2.
_gapWidth int
The gap between blocks in a _bar object in the X-axis.
The default is 8.
_gapDepth int
The gap between blocks in a _bar object in the Z-axis.
The default is 8.
_gapLabel int
The gap between the base of a _bar object, and any
metric or instance labels. The default is 6.
_gridWidth int
The minimum width of a _grid column. The default is
20.
_gridDepth int
The minimum depth of a _grid row. The default is 20.
_labelMargin int
The margin around a _label object. The default is 5.
_labelColor color
The color of _label and _bar labels. The default is
white.
The extra width of a _bar, _grid and _stack base plane
beyond the objects on the plane. The default is 8.
_marginDepth int
The extra depth of a _bar, _grid and _stack base plane
beyond the objects on the plane. The default is 8.
_pipeLength int
Total length of a _pipe. The default is the value of
_barHeight.
_scale real
The scale applied to the entire scene. This parameter
may not be used within any objects, only at the top of
the configuration file. The default is 1.0.
To simplify the specification of colors, a _colorList and
a _colorScale may be used to define colors for an object
which has metrics associated with it, i.e. _bar, _stack
or _pipe. A color list may be defined within an object,
or named and defined at the top of a configuration file.
A named color list may then be referenced within multiple
objects:
_colorList name ( color [color...] )
Associate the colors with the color list name. The
assignment of colors to blocks depends on the type of
an object. For example, the color list called foo has
the same color three times:
_colorList foo ( red rgbi:1.0/0.0/0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 )
_colorScale name color ( color real [color real...] )
Associate the colors and reals with the color list
name. The initial color is the default color of the
object. The object will change color to the other
colors when the normalized value of the object is
equal to or greater than each real. Therefore, each
real must be larger than the previous real, and should
be in the range 0.0 to 1.0. This scale gradually
changes from blue to red:
_colorScale coldToHot blue ( rgbi:0.5/0.0/1.0 0.3
purple 0.6
rgbi:1.0/0.0/0.5 0.8
red 0.95)
There are several different object types which could be
found in a pmview+ scene: _bar, _stack, _pipe, _grid,
_link, and _label. There is also _xing which is a special
type of the _link. The _bar, _stack and _pipe objects are
modulated by metric values, a _label is fixed text, _link
objects, including other _grid objects, which controls the
layout of the scene. A _grid object is only required if
there are two or more objects in the scene.
_bar, _grid and _stack objects may have base planes which
provide a point of reference for the blocks as they change
height. A label can be applied to the base plane _grid
object if it is _shown with:
_baseLabel name|string
_baseLabel should be used within the scope of the relevant
_bar, _grid or _stack object. The first ``\n'' characters
in the string will be replaced by a new line. Subsequent
``\n'' characters will be ignored.
For a scene to be valid it must contain at least one modu
lated object.
The objects are defined as:
_bar [options] ( [metric-list] [color-list] [label-list] )
A _bar object represents a collection of blocks. The
number of blocks depends on the number of metrics and
metric instances assigned to the object. By default,
the blocks are modulated by changing the height of
each block. Alternatively, blocks may be modulated by
changing color, or both height and color. Each color
in the color-list is assigned to each metric. There
fore, multiple instances of the one metric will have
the same color. The options that may be passed to a
_bar object are:
pos The position of the _bar object within the current
_grid object.
_col|_row
Position the blocks so that each instance is in a
column (_col) or a row (_row). This implies that
each different metric is in a separate row or col
umn, respectively. The default is _col.
_show|_hide
Is the base plane visible? Default is _show.
_ymod|_colormod|_colorymod
Modulate the blocks by adjusting their height
(_ymod), color (_colormod) or both height and
color (_colorymod).
_cube|_cylinder
Set the shape of the blocks. The default is
_cube.
Set the grouping of blocks when launching other
tools. For tools like pmchart(1) some views may
generate many small charts which cannot be drawn
entirely within the screen. Another problem is it
may be more appropriate to generate charts with
the same instance in each chart, rather then the
same metric. The group specifiers control the
algorithm used so that a separate chart will be
drawn for each _metrics specification (_groupby
metric), for the first, second etc. instance of
each _metric (_groupbyinst), or by the rows and
columns of the _bar object depending on _row or
_col. The default is _groupbymetric.
The options must be specified in this order, although
preceding options are not required. Therefore, this
is legal:
_bar _hide _cylinder ( ... )
The metrics, colors and labels are specified within
the brackets in any order. Only the metric-list is
mandatory.
metric-list
A _bar metric list contains a list of metric
names, normalization values and an optional label
for the metric:
_metrics ( metric real [string] [metric real [string]...] )
color-list
A _bar color list may be a named color list that
was defined earlier, or an unnamed color list. A
_colorScale list should be used when using _color
mod or _colorymod modulation. Therefore, the syn
tax for color lists within a _bar object are any
of:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
_colorScale name
_colorScale color ( color real [color real...] )
label-list
In addition to labels for each metric in the met
ric-list, metric and instance labels may be
defined using _metriclabels and _instlabels state
ments. The position of the labels around the _bar
object depends on the _row or _col orientation of
metrics and instances, and whether the label is
read _towards the _bar object, or _away. The
_metriclabels [_away|_towards] ( name|string [name|string...] )
_instlabels [_away|_towards] ( name|string
[name|string...] )
_grid [pos] [_show|_hide] ( objects )
A _grid object is a container for objects, including
other _grid objects. The rows and columns of a _grid
object are resized to the largest object in the row or
column. If an object spans multiple rows and/or
columns, those rows and columns may be partly resized
to contain the object. However, the resizing of rows
and columns for objects occupying multiple rows and
columns occurs after resizing for objects occupying
only one grid square.
A collision between objects occupying the same squares
will be reported as an error message and the later
object will be ignored.
The options to a _grid object control the position
(pos) of the _grid object in the parent _grid, and
indicate whether to _show or _hide the _grid base
plane. By default, the base plane is hidden.
The parameters described above may be specified within
the brackets of a _grid object, however they only
apply to the objects within the _grid, not the _grid
itself. For a parameter to be applied to a _grid
object, it must be specified before the _grid object
declaration.
_label [options] string
A _label object draws the contexts of string at the
location, orientation and size specified in the
options:
pos The position of the _label object in the current
_grid object.
_left|_right|_up|_down
The orientation of the string. The direction
indicates the direction the label is read. There
fore, _right is the default since the string is
read from left to right.
_small|_medium|_large
The font size. The default is _medium.
A _link object draws a straight or L-shaped horizontal
round ``pipe'' with diameter equal to 80% of the
_baseHeight of an enclosing _grid. The properties of
the object are defined by the options:
pos sets both the position of the _link on the grid
and its shape. _link starts in the column and row
on the _grid specified by first two numbers in the
pos and spans the number of columns and rows set
by the second two numbers. The alignment value is
used to decide the orientation of the link (links
are always aligned at the center): east and west
links are straight and going from left to right,
north and south links are straight and going from
far end of the grid to near end, northeast, north
west, southeast and southwest links are L-shaped
and connect the corresponding points of the com
pass, i.e. a northeast link takes on the general
shape of the Latin letter ``L''.
string
sets the ``tag'' for the _link which will be dis
played in the text window when the pointer is over
the link.
_pipe pos ( [metric-list] [color-list] [tag] )
A _pipe object represent a set of cylinders, placed on
top of each other and oriented parallel to the base
plane. The diameter of a _pipe is equal to 80% of
_baseHeight. The number of blocks is dependent on the
number of metric instances in the metric-list. The
colors in the color-list are assigned in turn to each
cylinder in the _pipe. The length of the _pipe is
defined by the _pipeLength.
pos defines the position of the _pipe on the enclosing
_grid and its orientation with alignment field
used to define at which end of the pipe to stack
the colored cylinders. The cylinders are stacked
at the corresponding point of the compass and the
pipe's direction is from the point of the compass
towards the center of the compass. Only east,
west, north, and south are valid values for the
pipe's alignment.
The metrics, colors and label may be specified within the
brackets in any order. Only the metric-list is mandatory.
A _pipe metric list contains a list of metric names
and normalization values:
_metrics ( metric real [metric real...] )
color-list
A _pipe color list may be named color list that was
defined earlier, or an unnamed color list:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
tag A _pipe may have a ``tag'' for the filler block (unan
imated block on the ``other'' end of the pipe) which
will be displayed in the text window when the pointer
is over that end of the pipe.
_pipeTag name|string
_stack [options] ( [metric-list] [color-list] [label] )
A _stack object represents a set of blocks placed ver
tically on top of each other. The number of blocks is
dependent on the number of metric instances in the
metric-list. The colors in the color-list are
assigned to each block in the _stack. By default, the
height of the _stack will be the sum of the height of
each block. The options that may be passed to a
_stack object are:
pos The position of the _stack object within the cur
rent _grid object.
_show|_hide
Is the base plane visible? Default is _show.
_utilmod|_fillmod
Force the height of the stack to always be the
maximum height. This is achieved by normalizing
the height of each block (_utilmod), or by adding
a grey block to the top of the stack (_fillmod).
_cube|_cylinder
Set the shape of the blocks. The default is
_cube.
The options must be specified in this order, although
preceding options are not required. Therefore, this
is legal:
_stack 1 1 _north _utilmod ( ... )
the brackets in any order. Only the metric-list is
mandatory.
metric-list
A _stack metric list contains a list of metric
names and normalization values:
_metrics ( metric real [metric real...] )
color-list
A _stack color list may be named color list that
was defined earlier, or an unnamed color list:
_colorList name
_colorList ( color [color...] )
label
A _fillmod type _stack may have a label for the
filler block:
_stackLabel name|string
_xing col row columns rows dir1 ... dir4
A _xing is a special kind of link which is used to
draw a pair of links which cross each other. To convey
the visual impression that the links do not join, one
of the links is drawn as a ``broken'' cylinder. col
and row define the position on the enclosing grid.
columns and rows define the size of the bounding box.
The end points of the crossing cylinders are placed
exactly in the center of the corner cells of the
bounding box and four small cylinders or stubs are
used to join the perimeter of the bounding box with
the end points on the crossing cylinders. Four dir
values define the orientation of the stubs, starting
at the upper left corner of the _xing and proceeding
clockwise, such that respective stubs are used to join
the point of the compass with the center on the cell
(see example).
EXAMPLE
This simple example illustrates the use of parameters and
different object types:
pmview Version 2.1
# Use a lighter grey for the base planes
_baseColor rgbi:0.5/0.5/0.5
# Define colors for CPU object
_colorList cpu ( blue2 red2 yellow2 cyan2 green2 )
_grid _hide (
# Show the current load in a bar object
_bar 0 0 (
_baseLabel "Load averages over a\n1, 5 and 15 minute interval"
_metrics (
kernel.all.load[1] 1 "1"
kernel.all.load[5] 1 "5"
kernel.all.load[15] 1 "15"
)
_colorList ( blue blue blue )
)
# Add a label below the load bars
_label 0 1 "Load"
# Change the color of the base plane for later objects
_baseColor pink
# Show the CPU usage over all CPUs in a utilization stack
_stack 2 0 _south _utilmod (
_baseLabel "CPU Utilization over all CPUs"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.intr 1000
kernel.all.cpu.wait.total 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
# Add a label below the CPU stack
_label 2 1 "CPU"
# Create a separate grid for links and pipes
_marginWidth 1
_marginDepth 1
_gridSpace 12
_grid 0 3 5 4 _hide (
_pipeLength 12
_baseHeight 12
# Add a pipe and a link with western orientation
_pipe 0 0 west (
_pipeTag "West pipe"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
# Add xing
_xing 1 0 3 3 west east east west
# Add a link and a pipe with eastern orientation
_pipe 4 0 east (
_pipeTag "East Pipe"
_metrics (
kernel.all.cpu.user 1000
kernel.all.cpu.sys 1000
kernel.all.cpu.idle 1000
)
_colorList cpu
)
_link 4 2 east "East link"
)
)
SEE ALSO
pmview(1) and pmview+(1).
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