How do I configure a firewall on a RHEL server to allow remote monitoring with Performance Co-Pilot (PCP)?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and later

Issue

• How do I configure firewall on a RHEL server to allow remote monitoring with performance Co-Pilot (PCP)?
• How can I configure PCP security features, including authentication and access control

Resolution

• for local performance data collection, the firewall configuration does NOT need to be changed. This is the most common PCP collector deployment.
• to allow monitoring of the server by remote PCP clients (including a remote pmlogger), the firewall configuration needs to be configured as follows :

RHEL7 and later

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=pmcd
firewall-cmd --reload

RHEL6 and RHEL5

use the standard firewall configuration tools, e.g. by running setup or system-config-securitylevel.

Additional Notes

• the firewall GUI tool on each RHEL version can also be used - just open up (or re-map) the pmcd port (which is normally 44321/tcp, see /etc/services) on the desired network interfaces or zones as needed.
• in a devops environment with the pmwebd(1) service enabled, you may also want to expose the pmwebd port, which is 44323/tcp by default.
• there may be security implications of allowing remote access - PCP exports a lot of information about the system. Due care is required when opening the pmcd port on a public zoned interface.

Authentication and access control

• PCP has authentication and access control features that can be configured if necessary, see the pcpintro(1) man page and also Content from pcp.io is not included.Authenticated Connections
• these features should be used when access control is required, e.g. for remote access over a public interface.

See Also

• Index of Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) articles, solutions, tutorials and white papers
• Content from pcp.io is not included.PCP Quick Reference Guide
• Introduction to storage performance analysis with PCP
• Content from www.pcp.io is not included.Performance Co-Pilot User's and Administrator's Guide

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