The pmchart tool uses the mouse buttons as follows:

A view in pmchart is a predefined collection of charts, typically constructed to display some common performance scenario. Default views are included in the PCP distribution, others are part of the various PCP add-on products, and others may be created by the pmchart end user. The Open View... option in the File menu launches a Select Performance View dialog box similar to Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3. pmchart Select Performance View Dialog

You may use this dialog to select one of the available views. The default PCP views include the following:

You can create your own custom views using the metric selection facilities, and save your views for later using the Save View... option of the File menu.

You can have pmchart display horizontal lines, usually in a lighter background color, at major tick marks by calling pmchart with the following arguments (quotes required):

% pmchart -xrm "PmChart*xrtYGridUseDefault: True" 

For greater convenience, you can place the following line in your $HOME/.Xresources file, to have pmchart always display horizontal lines:

PmChart*xrtYGridUseDefault: True

The pmchart Metric Selection window, shown in Figure 4-4, allows interactive navigation of the Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS) to create new chart configurations.

Figure 4-4. pmchart Metric Selection Dialog

You can choose metrics, display information about metrics, change the current host or archive, select metric instances, and plot metric values on a common time axis. You bring up this window by choosing New Plot... from the File menu of pmchart .

Metric selection proceeds by navigating through the tree-structured PMNS. If you enter a partial metric specification in the Path field in the Metric Selection dialog, you can avoid having to navigate through the PMNS for the metrics you need. For example, if you enter network.interface, the window changes dynamically, as shown in Figure 4-5.

Figure 4-5. Further Metric Selection

You can continue the selection process by choosing non-leaf nodes from the Nodes list, and finally a leaf node from the Metrics list. At this stage, the Path corresponds to a leaf node in the PMNS, as shown in Figure 4-6.

Figure 4-6. Selecting a Leaf Node in the PMNS (Performance Metric)

Once a metric has been selected, the Info button in the Metric Selection dialog launches the Metric Information dialog, as shown in Figure 4-7.

Figure 4-7. Metric Information Dialog

This dialog displays the name, unit, and semantics for the currently selected metric, along with the verbose help text that describes the metric, and optionally a description of the underlying instance domain.

Finally, you may have to select from several instances of a metric. In the example shown in Figure 4-7, you wish to monitor the input packet rate for some network interface(s). For the current source of performance metrics, there are two network interfaces configured. You must select one or more instances, as shown in Figure 4-8.

Figure 4-8. Selecting a Metric Instance

You can select multiple instances either by clicking and dragging up and down the list with the left mouse button, or by selecting the first instance and then using the Shift key (or Ctrl key) with the left mouse button to select one or more other instances.

From the File menu of pmchart when running in live mode, the Record (Stop Recording) option may be used to start (or stop) the creation of a PCP archive log. The archive log is created using pmlogger and includes the update interval and all of the performance metrics in the current pmchart configuration when recording begins.

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Note: Any changes made to the pmchart configuration after recording has been started will not be reflected in the archive log. For these to take effect, the recording must be stopped and restarted (thereby creating a second PCP archive log).

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When recording is started, a File Chooser dialog is launched, and the user must provide the name of a new file to be used as the PCP archive folio for the new archive. The recording session produces multiple files in the same directory as the archive folio.

If necessary, pmchart creates directories on the path to the named archive folio.

It is often convenient to maintain one directory for each new folio, or else one directory for each group of folios related by collector host(s), service type, or chart selection.

When recording is active, a small red indicator appears in the time control button, as shown at the bottom left of Figure 4-9.

Figure 4-9. pmchart Display When Recording

If you choose File > Stop Recording, logging stops immediately. The red light in the lower left turns gray.

To start recording again, chose File > Record and specify a new archive folio name.

If you exit pmchart by choosing File > Quit, an Archive Recording Session-pmchart dialog similar to that shown in Figure 4-10 appears to remind you where the archive folio was created, and to confirm that recording should be terminated.

Figure 4-10. Archive Recording Session-pmchart Dialog

If you select Yes, recording stops immediately.

If you select No, recording continues. This is a useful way to continue archive logging without keeping pmchart active.

When using a video projector, or when making presentations to a large group, or as a result of personal preference, the default pastel color scheme used by pmchart may be inappropriate.

The Colors option in the Edit menu allows arbitrary changes to the colors of individual charts. For more global changes, you can override the defaults using the X11 resources that pmchart honors.

For example, create or add the following entries in the $HOME/.xrdb file:

PmChart*xrtForegroundColor: "green" 
PmChart*xrtBackgroundColor: "black" 
PmChart*xrtGraphForegroundColor: "rgb:00/b0/00" 
PmChart*xrtGraphBackgroundColor: "black" 
PmChart*xrtHeaderForegroundColor: "green" 
PmChart*xrtHeaderBackgroundColor: "black" 
PmChart*pmDefaultColors: rgb:ff/ff/00 rgb:00/ff/00 rgb:00/00/ff \ 
                           rgb:ff/ff/00 rgb:00/ff/ff rgb:ff/00/ff 

Use the following command to change the default color scheme for pmchart to one with bright primary colors on a black background:

xrdb -merge $HOME/.xrdb 

The pmchart Edit menu provides options and a dialog that you may use to change and customize the display as follows:

The pmchart Options menu provides another option for customizing the display:

The Options menu provides access to the PCP Time Control Dialog.

The Print option in the File menu enables the current pmchart display to be printed in a variety of PostScript styles. The output can be saved in a file or sent directly to a printer.

The -o option for pmchart also provides the facility to produce Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) image snapshots of the pmchart display.

It is often convenient to publish performance summary information for the users of a particular computing environment. The pmchart tool, in combination with the pmsnap script and its associated control files, can be used to produce high-quality performance summary snapshot images in GIF format. These images can be incorporated into Web pages, reports, e-mail, or presentation material.

The following files and utilities are included in support of this feature:

Instructions for configuring pmsnap are in the man page. There is also a verbose comment at the head of the control file. The pmchart(1) man page is also useful.

The annotated examples in the pmchart chapter of the PCP Tutorial provide a guided illustration to a typical user's interactions with pmchart . The PCP Tutorial can be optionally installed as the pcp.man.tutorial subsystem. To view the pmchart chapter of the tutorial, open the following URL with your Web browser:

file:/var/pcp/Tutorial/pmchart.html