PMDF System Manager's Guide

The PMDF CIRCUIT_CHECK/SHOW (OpenVMS) or pmdf circuit_check -show (UNIX or NT) utility may be used to display the current circuit check counters. These counters are stored in an on-disk database, circuitcheck_results_nodename.dat (OpenVMS) or circuitcheck_results.* (UNIX or NT), located in the PMDF table directory. This database is cumulative and persists across restarts of the circuit check facility; you may delete the database if you want to clear the circuit check counters.

The counters track a number of variables.

• Sent messages. This is the total number of messages sent out on this circuit since the circuit check counters were last cleared (i.e., since any old circuit check database was deleted and a new circuit check database created).
• Outstanding messages. This is the number of sent messages minus the number of completed or expired messages. It is common to configure the message circuit check facility to stop sending additional circuit check messages whenever the number of outstanding messages exceeds a specified value. That is, when the e-mail system appears to be having some delivery problem, as evidenced by a large number of message circuit check messages that have not returned since the last restart of the circuit check process, do not add further to the load by sending additional message circuit check messages.
• Completed messages. Besides counting the total number of messages that have completed the circuit (arrived back at the circuit check facility), the message circuit check facility also keeps track of how long the messages took to complete their circuits. Binned counts of completion time are maintained; the CIRCUITCHECK_COMPLETED_BINS PMDF option, Section 7.3.6, controls the bin sizes. Note that since the message check facility only wakes up periodically to check for the arrival of completed messages, the actual delivery completion times will typically be a bit less than the reported values---the reported values are intended to indicate trends rather than be precise accountings of the completion time for an individual message.
• Minimum/average/maximum completion time values. The message circuit check facility keeps a running average of the time for message circuit completion for messages on each circuit, as well as tracking the minimum and maximum (less than EXPIRY) times seen for completion of the circuit. Note that since the message check facility only wakes up periodically to check for the arrival of completed messages, the actual delivery completion times will typically be a bit less than the reported values---the reported values are intended to indicate trends rather than be precise accountings of the completion time for an individual message.
• Expired messages. The message circuit check facility may be configured to consider messages to expire if they do not return within a specified amount of time. That is, if a message has not returned from a local system within, say, a day, one might want to consider the message effectively lost---perhaps the message was deleted manually or in some other way abnormally removed from the mail system. Specifying an expiry time ensures that messages that are lost, or messages that take an abnormally long time to return due to special factors, e.g., manual sidelining on a remote system, do not unduly influence the reported average and maximum completion times for messages that complete a circuit "normally".
• Failed messages. When a circuit check message is bounced at some point on the circuit, rather than returning normally, it is accounted as a failed message.
• Obsolete message files. When the message circuit check facility is restarted after having been previously running, there may be files corresponding to as yet unprocessed messages that have completed a circuit waiting in the queue for processing by the circuit check facility. When the circuit check facility is restarted, such message files---those generated by a previous instantiation of the circuit check facility---become obsolete. The "obsolete" row in the PMDF CIRCUIT_CHECK/SHOW (OpenVMS) or pmdf circuit_check -show (UNIX or NT) output refers to such left-over message files.
• Abandoned message files.

Example 33-2 shows a sample of PMDF CIRCUIT_CHECK/SHOW output on an OpenVMS system domain.com. The domain.com site is assumed to have a circuit check configuration file with five circuits defined, one through another internal domain.com system beta.domain.com (1), one that goes through two additional internal systems gamma.domain.com and then delta.domain.com (2), one through Message Router (3), one through a remote X.400 MTA (4), and one through Lotus Notes via a PMDF-LAN LN channel (5).

Example 33-2 Sample of PMDF CIRCUIT_CHECK/SHOW Output

$ PMDF CIRCUIT_CHECK/SHOW 2 5 15 30 60 120 240 480 beta (circuitcheck%domain.com@beta.domain.com) (1) Sent 2193 Completed 2193 294 1864 18 9 6 2 Min/Ave/Max 1.03333/2.32877/148.367 Obsolete 1 gamma-delta (circuitcheck%domain.com%delta.domain.com@gamma.domain.com) (2) Sent 2170 Completed 2170 2127 6 19 8 4 4 2 Min/Ave/Max 1.01667/1.60402/127.483 Obsolete 1 mr (circuitcheck%domain.com%PMDF@mr.domain.com) (3) Sent 1813 Completed 1813 1784 5 6 8 9 1 Min/Ave/Max 1.03333/1.48306/127.483 Obsolete 1 x400 (/C=US/ADMD=TELCO/PRMD=DOMAIN/S=circuitcheck/@x400.domain.com) (4) Sent 304 Completed 304 298 2 2 1 1 Min/Ave/Max 1.03333/1.76897/127.483 lotus-notes (circuitcheck%domain.com%PMDF@lnotes.domain.com) (5) Sent 202 Completed 168 145 3 4 6 Min/Ave/Max 1.03333/80.6514/1.41568E3 Obsolete 36 Abandoned 34