CAUTION: This page documents an old version of Prometheus. Check out the latest stable version.

promtool

Tooling for the Prometheus monitoring system.

Flags

Flag Description
-h, --help Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
--version Show application version.
--experimental Enable experimental commands.
--enable-feature ... Comma separated feature names to enable (only PromQL related and no-default-scrape-port). See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/feature_flags/ for the options and more details.

Commands

Command Description
help Show help.
check Check the resources for validity.
query Run query against a Prometheus server.
debug Fetch debug information.
push Push to a Prometheus server.
test Unit testing.
tsdb Run tsdb commands.
promql PromQL formatting and editing. Requires the --experimental flag.

promtool help

Show help.

Arguments

Argument Description
command Show help on command.

promtool check

Check the resources for validity.

Flags

Flag Description
--extended Print extended information related to the cardinality of the metrics.
promtool check service-discovery

Perform service discovery for the given job name and report the results, including relabeling.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--timeout The time to wait for discovery results. 30s
Arguments
Argument Description Required
config-file The prometheus config file. Yes
job The job to run service discovery for. Yes
promtool check config

Check if the config files are valid or not.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--syntax-only Only check the config file syntax, ignoring file and content validation referenced in the config
--lint Linting checks to apply to the rules specified in the config. Available options are: all, duplicate-rules, none. Use --lint=none to disable linting duplicate-rules
--lint-fatal Make lint errors exit with exit code 3. false
--agent Check config file for Prometheus in Agent mode.
Arguments
Argument Description Required
config-files The config files to check. Yes
promtool check web-config

Check if the web config files are valid or not.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
web-config-files The config files to check. Yes
promtool check healthy

Check if the Prometheus server is healthy.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--http.config.file HTTP client configuration file for promtool to connect to Prometheus.
--url The URL for the Prometheus server. http://localhost:9090
promtool check ready

Check if the Prometheus server is ready.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--http.config.file HTTP client configuration file for promtool to connect to Prometheus.
--url The URL for the Prometheus server. http://localhost:9090
promtool check rules

Check if the rule files are valid or not.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--lint Linting checks to apply. Available options are: all, duplicate-rules, none. Use --lint=none to disable linting duplicate-rules
--lint-fatal Make lint errors exit with exit code 3. false
Arguments
Argument Description
rule-files The rule files to check, default is read from standard input.
promtool check metrics

Pass Prometheus metrics over stdin to lint them for consistency and correctness.

examples:

$ cat metrics.prom | promtool check metrics

$ curl -s http://localhost:9090/metrics | promtool check metrics

promtool query

Run query against a Prometheus server.

Flags

Flag Description Default
-o, --format Output format of the query. promql
--http.config.file HTTP client configuration file for promtool to connect to Prometheus.
promtool query instant

Run instant query.

Flags
Flag Description
--time Query evaluation time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to query. Yes
expr PromQL query expression. Yes
promtool query range

Run range query.

Flags
Flag Description
--header Extra headers to send to server.
--start Query range start time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
--end Query range end time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
--step Query step size (duration).
Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to query. Yes
expr PromQL query expression. Yes
promtool query series

Run series query.

Flags
Flag Description
--match ... Series selector. Can be specified multiple times.
--start Start time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
--end End time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to query. Yes
promtool query labels

Run labels query.

Flags
Flag Description
--start Start time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
--end End time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp).
--match ... Series selector. Can be specified multiple times.
Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to query. Yes
name Label name to provide label values for. Yes
promtool query analyze

Run queries against your Prometheus to analyze the usage pattern of certain metrics.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--server Prometheus server to query.
--type Type of metric: histogram.
--duration Time frame to analyze. 1h
--time Query time (RFC3339 or Unix timestamp), defaults to now.
--match ... Series selector. Can be specified multiple times.

promtool debug

Fetch debug information.

promtool debug pprof

Fetch profiling debug information.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to get pprof files from. Yes
promtool debug metrics

Fetch metrics debug information.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to get metrics from. Yes
promtool debug all

Fetch all debug information.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
server Prometheus server to get all debug information from. Yes

promtool push

Push to a Prometheus server.

Flags

Flag Description
--http.config.file HTTP client configuration file for promtool to connect to Prometheus.
promtool push metrics

Push metrics to a prometheus remote write (for testing purpose only).

Flags
Flag Description Default
--label Label to attach to metrics. Can be specified multiple times. job=promtool
--timeout The time to wait for pushing metrics. 30s
--header Prometheus remote write header.
Arguments
Argument Description Required
remote-write-url Prometheus remote write url to push metrics. Yes
metric-files The metric files to push, default is read from standard input.

promtool test

Unit testing.

Flags

Flag Description
--junit File path to store JUnit XML test results.
promtool test rules

Unit tests for rules.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--run ... If set, will only run test groups whose names match the regular expression. Can be specified multiple times.
--diff [Experimental] Print colored differential output between expected & received output. false
Arguments
Argument Description Required
test-rule-file The unit test file. Yes

promtool tsdb

Run tsdb commands.

promtool tsdb bench

Run benchmarks.

promtool tsdb bench write

Run a write performance benchmark.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--out Set the output path. benchout
--metrics Number of metrics to read. 10000
--scrapes Number of scrapes to simulate. 3000
Arguments
Argument Description Default
file Input file with samples data, default is (../../tsdb/testdata/20kseries.json). ../../tsdb/testdata/20kseries.json
promtool tsdb analyze

Analyze churn, label pair cardinality and compaction efficiency.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--limit How many items to show in each list. 20
--extended Run extended analysis.
--match Series selector to analyze. Only 1 set of matchers is supported now.
Arguments
Argument Description Default
db path Database path (default is data/). data/
block id Block to analyze (default is the last block).
promtool tsdb list

List tsdb blocks.

Flags
Flag Description
-r, --human-readable Print human readable values.
Arguments
Argument Description Default
db path Database path (default is data/). data/
promtool tsdb dump

Dump samples from a TSDB.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--sandbox-dir-root Root directory where a sandbox directory will be created, this sandbox is used in case WAL replay generates chunks (default is the database path). The sandbox is cleaned up at the end.
--min-time Minimum timestamp to dump. -9223372036854775808
--max-time Maximum timestamp to dump. 9223372036854775807
--match ... Series selector. Can be specified multiple times. {__name__=~'(?s:.*)'}
Arguments
Argument Description Default
db path Database path (default is data/). data/
promtool tsdb dump-openmetrics

[Experimental] Dump samples from a TSDB into OpenMetrics text format, excluding native histograms and staleness markers, which are not representable in OpenMetrics.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--sandbox-dir-root Root directory where a sandbox directory will be created, this sandbox is used in case WAL replay generates chunks (default is the database path). The sandbox is cleaned up at the end.
--min-time Minimum timestamp to dump. -9223372036854775808
--max-time Maximum timestamp to dump. 9223372036854775807
--match ... Series selector. Can be specified multiple times. {__name__=~'(?s:.*)'}
Arguments
Argument Description Default
db path Database path (default is data/). data/
promtool tsdb create-blocks-from

[Experimental] Import samples from input and produce TSDB blocks. Please refer to the storage docs for more details.

Flags
Flag Description
-r, --human-readable Print human readable values.
-q, --quiet Do not print created blocks.
promtool tsdb create-blocks-from openmetrics

Import samples from OpenMetrics input and produce TSDB blocks. Please refer to the storage docs for more details.

Flags
Flag Description
--label Label to attach to metrics. Can be specified multiple times. Example --label=labelname=labelvalue
Arguments
Argument Description Default Required
input file OpenMetrics file to read samples from. Yes
output directory Output directory for generated blocks. data/
promtool tsdb create-blocks-from rules

Create blocks of data for new recording rules.

Flags
Flag Description Default
--http.config.file HTTP client configuration file for promtool to connect to Prometheus.
--url The URL for the Prometheus API with the data where the rule will be backfilled from. http://localhost:9090
--start The time to start backfilling the new rule from. Must be a RFC3339 formatted date or Unix timestamp. Required.
--end If an end time is provided, all recording rules in the rule files provided will be backfilled to the end time. Default will backfill up to 3 hours ago. Must be a RFC3339 formatted date or Unix timestamp.
--output-dir Output directory for generated blocks. data/
--eval-interval How frequently to evaluate rules when backfilling if a value is not set in the recording rule files. 60s
Arguments
Argument Description Required
rule-files A list of one or more files containing recording rules to be backfilled. All recording rules listed in the files will be backfilled. Alerting rules are not evaluated. Yes

promtool promql

PromQL formatting and editing. Requires the --experimental flag.

promtool promql format

Format PromQL query to pretty printed form.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
query PromQL query. Yes
promtool promql label-matchers

Edit label matchers contained within an existing PromQL query.

promtool promql label-matchers set

Set a label matcher in the query.

Flags
Flag Description Default
-t, --type Type of the label matcher to set. =
Arguments
Argument Description Required
query PromQL query. Yes
name Name of the label matcher to set. Yes
value Value of the label matcher to set. Yes
promtool promql label-matchers delete

Delete a label from the query.

Arguments
Argument Description Required
query PromQL query. Yes
name Name of the label to delete. Yes

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