For monitoring PMDF, usually the best place to start is with PMDF's optional logging of message traffic; from this basic information, sites may gather statistics such as how many messages are passing through PMDF, and answering other questions on message traffic. See Section 33.1 below which provides an overview of logging, and examples on interpreting log entries.

The web-based QM utility, if enabled, may be used for tasks such as scanning what messages are present in the PMDF queue area; see Section 33.2. Alternatively, the command line utility PMDF QM (OpenVMS) or pmdf qm (UNIX and NT) may be used to scan what messages are present in the PMDF queue area.

The PMDF message circuit check facility may be used to monitor the health of the mail system, using loopback messages (messages that travel out from and then back to the circuit check facility) to monitor that connectivity to and from remote systems is available and to monitor the speed of delivery of such messages. See Section 33.3 which discusses configuring and using this facility.

PMDF also has facilities to collect and monitor channel counters based upon the Mail Monitoring MIB, RFC 1566. Note that counters are intended for providing real-time "snap-shots" of PMDF behavior, rather than for gathering the sort of statistics instead available from the log files. For a description of the PMDF counters, see Section 33.4 below.

PMDF provides utilities to display the counters directly; on OpenVMS see the PMDF COUNTERS and PMDF QM utilities, described in Chapter 31, or on UNIX or NT see the pmdf counters and pmdf qm utilities, described in Chapter 32.

PMDF also provides a web-based monitoring interface that can display, among other things, PMDF channel counter information; see Section 33.7 below.

On OpenVMS, sites running the HP-supplied HP Commander monitoring package (also known as Enterprise Mail Monitor, EMM, or PolyCenter MAILbus Monitor, PMM) can monitor PMDF using the PMM scanning module supplied with PMDF; see Section 33.5 below.

On OpenVMS, the Process Software TCPware TCP/IP package has an SNMPv2 subagent support; sites running this TCP/IP package can therefore serve out the PMDF counters via SNMP. See Section 33.6 below.