PMDABIND2(1)

✨ PMDABIND2 ✨

okay bestie, welcome to pmdabind2 — it's a BIND performance metrics domain agent (a PMDA, for those in the know), and it lives in the General Commands Manual section 1. yes, the whole manual name is in the title, we're doing this properly 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

pmdabind2 — the BIND performance metrics domain agent, aka the PMDA that gets you all the BIND stats. it's giving observability. it's giving data. 🦋

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically this PMDA extracts performance data from BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain, iconic name honestly). it lets you collect most of the statistics metrics from a Bind server version 9 or later, and that includes:

• overall memory statistics 🧠
• overall per-query statistics — general queries, EDNS/truncated responses, Update/Notify/AXFR/IXFR messages 💌
• overall error statistics — Rejected, SERVFAIL, Update/XFR failures … the whole sad list 😭
• overall statistics per transport protocol, EDNS and per version of IP protocol 🌐
• resolver statistics — successes, errors, round-trip times in several ranges ⏱️
• detailed per-socket statistics with respect to the transport protocol and IP version, including errors 🔌
• detailed per-file-descriptor statistics, including errors 📁

ngl the PMDA does per-second collection of the whole data set (148 metrics on the test environment) and it's lowkey so modest about it — 2% CPU usage on Intel i7-4700MQ @2.4 GHz, cca 30 MB RAM. queen behavior, honestly. 👑

and here's the cute part: if more than 1 requests/sec is performed, the memoized values are used so that the statistics interface of the Bind server does not get overloaded. protective. considerate. we stan. 🫶

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🎀 INSTALLATION 🎀

first things first, bestie: configure BIND to export XML statistics via its REST interface. this requires BIND configuration to enable statistics exporting locally (at least).

statistics-channels {
    inet 127.0.0.1 port 8080 allow { 127.0.0.1; };
}
options { zone-statistics yes; }
# ./Install

the hostname (localhost), the port (8080 above) and other configuration information must be specified in both the BIND configuration file as well as the $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2/bind2.conf file. both. not one. both. 💅

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2
# [ edit bind2.conf ]
  host=localhost.localdomain:8080

once this is setup, you can access the names and values for the bind2 performance metrics by doing the following as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2
# ./Install

to uninstall, the following must be done as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2
# ./Remove

okay so important lore: pmdabind2 is launched by pmcd(1) and should never be executed directly. don't do it. don't be that girl. 🙈

the Install and Remove scripts notify pmcd(1) when the agent is installed or removed. they handle the gossip. 💌

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🦋 FILES 🦋

• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2/bind2.conf — mandatory configuration file listing monitored bind2 instances. mandatory means mandatory bestie, no skipping 📋
• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2/Install — installation script for the pmdabind2 agent 🔧
• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bind2/Remove — undo installation script for the pmdabind2 agent 🗑️
• $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/bind2.log — the default log file for error messages from pmdabind2 📝

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🌈 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 configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5). it's giving customization. it's giving options. we love options. ✨

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1), pmdanamed(1), named.conf(5) and named(8). go read them, they're all part of the family 🫶

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and that's the whole vibe, bestie — this page came to you straight from Performance Co-Pilot (PCP), filed under PMDABIND2(1), and it's a certified classic. slay, monitor responsibly, and don't run the agent directly. periodt. 💅✨💖