colplot - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

colplot - plots collectl data using gnuplot

SYNOPSIS

colplot -plot plots [-switches]

DESCRIPTIONS

Generate the plots selected by PLOT(s) on either the terminal, a file or delivered as
email. The switches control the files to plot, the timeframes, formats and destinations.
In the case of a web based display, you can run in `live` mode which will provide for
periodic screen refreshes for viewing real-time data. See the web-based help and FAQ for
more detail.

PLOTS

The plots themselves are selected from the standard list (see -showplots) with -plot.

-plot
List one or more plot names either separated with commas and no whitespace or if
you want to include whitespace be sure to enclose the string in quotes.

SWITCHES

The remainder of the switches which are all optional fall into several categories, the
first being those that select the files and timeframes to plot and are as follow:

-dir
Look in this directory for plot files rather than the one pointed to by PlotDir in
colplot.conf. A plot file is one with a known extension and a properly formatted
name. Any files that fail either of these tests will be ignored.

-contains string1 [string2...]
This field consists of one or more strings separated by commas or whitespace (if
whitespace the entire string must be quoted). Each selected plot file has its name
compared to each string. Unless -any is specified, each string must appear
somewhere in that file name for it to continue to be selected.

As a special case, if there is a string containing a [, it is assumed to be in pdsh
format, a compact format for specifying multiple hostnames, eg xyz[1-5,10]
specifies 6 hosts whose names all begin with xyz and are followed by one of 6
values. In this case, only files with hostnames exactly matching these names will
be selected.

-all
If specified all strings specified by -contains must match for a file to be
seleceted for plotting.

-date from[-thru]
The starting and ending date between which files are selected for plotting. The
dates must be in yyyymmdd format.

-lastmins minutes
Once all the files matching the selection criteria are discovered, use the more
recent file access time to determine the ending time for plotting data. Note, if
you've copied the file from elsewhere and didn't preserve the last access time in
the newly created files this will produce unexpected results.

-time from[-thru]
The starting and ending time between which data is plotted. The times must be in
hh:mm OR hh:mm:ss format. The hour portion may be 1 or 2 digits.

The next set of switches control which plots are actually displayed

-filters string1 [string2...]
These only apply to detail plots. They select which devices to produce plots for.
Invalid or unknown devics are ignored. In other words, if one selects "-filters
eth xyz d1" and requests network plots, only ethernet devices will be displayed.
Since 'xyz' is an invalid selection string it is ignored. Since there are no
network devices with 'd1' in their names, it too will be ignored. If one choses
network and disk plots, ethernet devices as well as any disk names with a 'd1' in
them will be displayed.

-type type
By default, plots are geneated using solid lines. However, one can request a
different format be used including points or stacked line or stacked points.

-unique
If one generates multiple unique plot files per day via the -ou switch in collectl,
those files will be ignored by colplot. This switch, currently only available via
the CLI will cause those files to be selected and displayed in the same plot.

The next set of switches deal with plot formatting, typically only used under unusual
circumstances since the default formats meet most needs:

-adjust
Colplot uses a default height for the vertical axis which can be overridden via
-height. However sometimes a plot is not high enough for all the labels to fit in
the legend. This switch will keep the user specified height for all plots in which
the legend fits as a single column but increase the heights of those that aren't
high enough.

-filetype type
This switch must be used in conjunction with selecting a destination other than the
terminal, specifically email or directory. One can use it to change the default
from a PDF file to either a PNG file for each plot or TTY to send PNG output for
one plot to STDOUT.

-height number
This controls the vertical hight of a plot. This width also includes the xaxis and
you can therefore increase the room taken by a single plot by choosing -noxaxis.

-nolegend number
This removes the legend from the plotting area, causing the plot to become
physically wider.

-noxaxis
This removed the xaxis from the plotting area, causing the plot to become
physically taller.

-thick number
For some people the thickness of the lines in a plot may be too thin to clearly see
the different color variations of the lines. Versions of gnuplot >= 4.2 support
wider lines and therefore so does colplot. If using scatter plots, a different
plotting symbol is actually used. Values of 2 or 3 are usually sufficient.

-width number
This switch controls the width of a plot where 1 is the size of a printable page.
If set to more than 1 and either -file or -mail is chosen it will be forced to 1.
By setting this number to less than 1, it may be possible to fit more than one plot
on a page or screen. As this width also includes the legend, you can further
reduce the plot size by choosing -nolegend.

-xtics n
This causes a tic mark to be drawn on the xaxis every n seconds. It usually
doesn't make sense unless you've chosen a fairly narrow timeframe in which to
generate a plot.

-ylog
Make the y-axis logrithmic.

This set of switches deal with the plot destination when it is NOT the terminal window:

-email address
Linux only. Address to send plot file(s) to. The only syntax check is for an '@'
to appear somewhere in the address string.

-filedir directory
The name of directory into which the plot file(s) will be placed. The directory
must exist.

-href
Print the hrefs that would be used if run from a browser.

-incctl
Really only intended for users familiar with gnuplot, this is the control file used
to generate the plots. It allows someone to manually edit the file to change the
plot appearance and/or labels by rerunning gnuplot using its settings.

-pagbrk
Instead of generating a page break in a pdf file whenever a page fills, this flag
will cause a page break whenever the hostname changes.

-subject subject
Use this subject in email rather than the default.

And finally for completeness there are several types of help:

-help
Standard help.

-showparams
This is really a debugging aid, intended for developers and/or people building
custom plot definitions. When specified, the plotting parameters for each selected
plot will be shown. Of particular value is the actual column number for each data
element in each selected file.

-showplots
List the names of all the standard plots available for use with the -plots switch.

-version
Show both the versions of both colplot as well as gnuplot.

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