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Re: Book reviewers sought

To: Nathan Scott <nathans@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Book reviewers sought
From: fche@xxxxxxxxxx (Frank Ch. Eigler)
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 14:05:42 -0400
Cc: pcp@xxxxxxxxxxx, Chris Wengelski <chrisw@xxxxxxx>
Delivered-to: pcp@xxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <1459024390.4164300.1376646902350.JavaMail.root@xxxxxxxxxx> (Nathan Scott's message of "Fri, 16 Aug 2013 05:55:02 -0400 (EDT)")
References: <1852342740.4159092.1376645760219.JavaMail.root@xxxxxxxxxx> <1459024390.4164300.1376646902350.JavaMail.root@xxxxxxxxxx>
User-agent: Gnus/5.1008 (Gnus v5.10.8) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux)
nathans wrote:

> [...]  If you have time available, please have a read and send back
> any feedback you have [...]

It looks good.  Some nits:

* page viii: as we discussed on IRC, "man -k performance" is too broad;
  perhaps we should just link to "man PCPIntro".

* page 2, need motivation/mention for the archive folio concept

* page 7, pmdasystemd: This does not extract performance metrics, but
  turns journal records into pcp events.

* page 7, mention pmdalogger: extracting lines of text from a log file
  into pcp events

* page 7, pmwebd: Might mention HTTP beside JSON, just to spell out
  the transport protocol.

* page 4...9: suggest moving list of tools after the 'conceptual
  foundations' stuff

* page 11: "there may be at most one pmcd process": not technically true,
  as people can run their own (on private ports, etc.); how about "normally"?

* page 14: "PMCS" - is there any need for this term?  How about saying that
  the pcp libraries provide utility functions for PMDAs?  Or just use "PCP"
  instead of "the PMCS" throughout the book?

* page 17: ${PCP_RC_DIR} appears unannounced.  Refer to /etc/pcp.conf earlier?

* page 23: the "store" operation reminds me, we should take that permission
  out of default pmcd.conf's.

* page 24, the "collector or monitor or both" question could be clearer.
  I must admit I don't understand what exactly we're asking.

* page 27, "cannot connect to remote pmcd".  Note firewalls.

* page 28, "netstat -a | grep 44321" presumes pmcd missing in /etc/services;
  use "netstat -atn" instead.

* page 31, "dkvis" - whatchewtalkingaboutwillis?

* page 32, "The -h and -a options are mutually exclusive in all cases"
  That is kind of sad actually; we should be willing to display a mixture
  of historical and live data throughout.

* page 32. "/etc/pcp.*": those files should be listed far earlier, to explain
  the use of ${PCP_FOOBAR} variables throughout the book.  But actually,
  is there some reason we don't autoconf-generate some fragment of this book,
  so that actual per-installation path names are shown in the book?  Maybe
  everywhere, maybe in an appendix about This Very Installation?

* page 35, just a note, some neat libraries exist that take freeform english
  to specify time points / intervals, like "last thursday, 3pm"; perhaps we
  should pull them into libpcp for use with -S etc.

* page 36, just a note, PCP_COUNTER_WRAP seems like a hacky hammer; if
  anything, it should be per-metric or something.  If it's only used
  in diagnostic emergencies, maybe not document it here?

* page 37, just a note, PMLOGGER_PORT, pmlc<->pmlogger really need some
  authentication

* page 38, our mysterious superhero dkvis makes another appearance

* page 38, just a note, pmproxy and similar need outbound ACLs;
  bug already filed

* page 39, the "-t interval" mention at the bottom looks weird word-wrapped

* page 49, the teaser use cases for pmie sound good; if those are actually
  implementable today, we should provide a link to the pmie configuration

* page 54, top, backslash looks like \ not / :-)

* page 82, mysterious new caped superhero "pmview" makes an appearance

* page 92, add-on products shping / dbping being sweaty sidekicks to the heros;
  as they're in the base package, why not drop "add-on products" vice "included
  non-default PMDAs"?

* page 103, PMNS syntax, I wonder whether this part needs documenting.  How
  much do you expect a pcp user/administrator to read, never mind write such
  a file?

* page 107, do we need to document the PDU concept?
  (I above suggested dropping PMCS also.)



- FChE

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