pmdasendmail

Synopsis

$PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail/pmdasendmail [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-U username]

Description

pmdasendmail is a sendmail Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which exports mail traffic statistics as collected by sendmail(1).

Before the sendmail PMDA can export any metrics, sendmail(1) must have statistics collection enabled.  This involves checking the name of the statistics file, as given by the OS or O StatusFile control lines in /etc/sendmail.cf, and then creating this file if it does not already exist. Removing the file will terminate statistics collection by sendmail(1) and hence the sendmail PMDA.

A brief description of the pmdasendmail command line options follows:

-d

It is absolutely crucial that the performance metrics domain number specified here is unique and consistent. That is, domain should be different for every PMDA on the one host, and the same domain number should be used for the same PMDA on all hosts.

-l

Location of the log file.  By default, a log file named sendmail.log is written in the current directory of pmcd(1) when pmdasendmail is started, i.e. $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd. If the log file cannot be created or is not writable, output is written to the standard error instead.

-U

User account under which to run the agent. The default is the unprivileged "pcp" account in current versions of PCP, but in older versions the superuser account ("root") was used by default.

There are no communication options, as the Install script ensures the sendmail PMDA will be connected to PMCD by a pipe.

Installation

If you want access to the names, help text and values for the sendmail performance metrics, do the following as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail
# ./Install

If you want to undo the installation, do the following as root:

# cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail
# ./Remove

pmdasendmail is launched by pmcd(1) and should never be executed directly. The Install and Remove scripts notify pmcd(1) when the agent is installed or removed.

Files

$PCP_PMCDCONF_PATH

command line options used to launch pmdasendmail

$PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail/help

default help text file for the sendmail metrics

$PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail/Install

installation script for the pmdasendmail agent

$PCP_PMDAS_DIR/sendmail/Remove

undo installation script for the pmdasendmail agent

$PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/sendmail.log

default log file for error messages and other information from pmdasendmail

/etc/sendmail.cf

sendmail configuration file to identify the name of the statistics file

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).

See Also

pmcd(1) and sendmail(1).

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