PCP-SHPING(1)

💅 pcp-shping — the manual page, bestie edition ✨

okay so this is pcp-shping(1), a General Commands Manual page from the Performance Co-Pilot crew, and it's literally about checking whether your shell services are alive and how fast they're replying. sit with me, we're doing this together 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

pcp-shping — report on shell service availability and response

like. the name says it all. shell. ping. reporting. iconic.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pcp [pcp options] shping [-cl?]  tag ...

yes bestie, you give it a bunch of *tag*s, and it goes to work 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

pcp-shping samples and reports on the shell-ping service metrics exported by the pmdashping(1) agent. that's the whole vibe.

the default report from pcp-shping shows two columns for each service tag:

1. the first column is the service status — a zero means success, so zero is the good number here, no cap, that's just how it is
2. the second column is the service response time

both of those are for the last pmdashping command refresh cycle. periodt.

and okay, here's the cute part — when you invoke it via the pcp(1) command, the -h/--host, -a/--archive, -O/--origin, -s/--samples, -t/--interval, -Z/--timezone and several other pcp options become indirectly available to you. so you get extra powers for free, iykyk. for their descriptions, go read PCPIntro(1) — she explains them all 🌈

💖 OPTIONS 💖

the available command line options are:

• -c, --status — displays a summary of the current shell-ping collector, including info about the service refresh interval, the current command timeout setting, count of refreshes, and the full command line associated with each tag. it's giving "tell me everything about yourself" energy 🔥
• -l, --tags — displays the valid tags. that's it, that's the whole thing, and honestly? we love a short king.
• -?, --help — display usage message and exit. classic. the ? really said "I need assistance" 🙈

🌟 PCP ENVIRONMENT 🌟

environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the file and directory names used by PCP. so if you see a PCP_ something, that's why bestie.

on each installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables.

and here's a lil tip (it's in the original, I'm not making it up, promise): the $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5). slay ✨

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

PCPIntro(1), pcp(1) and pmdashping(1).

go read them. all of them. they're your friends now 🫶

okay that's the whole page!! this was written for Performance Co-Pilot (that's the source/version right there 💜), and it's from the PCP collection — so if you remember nothing else, remember: tags in, two columns out, zero means success. go forth and shell-ping, main character 🌸💅🎀