PMDABPFTRACE(1)

💖 PMDABPFTRACE(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the pmdabpftrace manual page (it's a General Commands Manual thing, and yes you're in the right place 💅)

---

✨ NAME ✨

pmdabpftrace — the bpftrace PMDA. that's it, that's the name, short and iconic 💖

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so pmdabpftrace is a Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA), and its whole ~thing~ is that it exports metrics from bpftrace(8) scripts. that's the job. that's the vibe. no cap. 🫶

---

🎀 CONFIGURATION 🎀

pmdabpftrace reads an optional ini-style configuration file, and she lives here:

$PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace/bpftrace.conf

this file can contain a [bpftrace] section and a [dynamic_scripts] section. and listen — if you turn on the dynamic scripts functionality, pls pls pls go read https://pcp.io/docs/lab.auth.html on how to set up authentication. this is highly recommended, because otherwise literally anyone could run any bpftrace(8) script as root 😭 that's not a vibe, that's a yikes.

---

💜 the [bpftrace] section 💜

it specifies values for these settings (defaults are in the parentheses, no secrets here):

• bpftrace_path (bpftrace) — the path to the bpftrace(8) executable. where's the girl at, basically 💅
• script_expiry_time (60) — unnamed scripts get removed after this period of time, and we're talking seconds, in case there's been no requests for their values. ghosted = expired, periodt.
• max_throughput (2097152) — the maximum throughput of bpftrace scripts, in bytes. big number, big energy 🔥

---

🌸 the [dynamic_scripts] section 🌸

same deal, values for these settings (defaults again in the parentheses):

• enabled (false) — a boolean value that says whether a script should be started on demand, by executing pmStore (3) bpftrace.control.register. this feature needs to be enabled for the PCP bpftrace datasource in grafana-pcp. iykyk.
• auth_enabled (true) — a boolean value saying whether authentication is required or not. please see the note above about authentication setup 👀 (yes, the root one. that one.)
• allowed_users (root) — a comma-separated list of usernames who are allowed to register bpftrace(8) scripts. the guest list, bestie. keep it tight 🎀

---

👑 INSTALLATION 👑

to install, the following must be done as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace
# ./Install

to uninstall, also as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace
# ./Remove

and a lil PSA: pmdabpftrace is launched by pmcd(1) and should never be executed directly, okay? don't do it. she's got a manager. the Install and Remove scripts notify pmcd(1) when the agent is installed or removed, so the whole thing stays coordinated 💅

---

🍓 FILES 🍓

• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace/bpftrace.conf — configuration file for the pmdabpftrace agent
• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace/Install — installation script for the pmdabpftrace agent
• $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/bpftrace/Remove — undo installation script for the pmdabpftrace agent
• $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/bpftrace.log — default log file for messages from the pmdabpftrace agent

quick note bestie: the usual/default value for $PCP_PMDAS_DIR is /var/lib/pcp/pmdas and the default for $PCP_LOG_DIR is /var/log/pcp, but these settings are platform dependent, so check before you assume 💖

---

🌈 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. and the $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5). iconic behaviour fr fr ✨

---

💀 SEE ALSO 💀

PCPIntro(1), pmcd(1) and bpftrace(8).

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 🧚 this was Performance Co-Pilot, PCP, and the page is PMDABPFTRACE(1) — mwah, go slay some metrics 💖✨🎀