prometheus/docs/command-line/promtool.md

title

title
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. Valid options: promql-experimental-functions, promql-delayed-name-removal. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/feature_flags/ for 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	Default
--query.lookback-delta	The server's maximum query lookback duration.	5m
--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/scrape configs specified in the config. Available options are: all, duplicate-rules, none, too-long-scrape-interval. Use --lint=none to disable linting	duplicate-rules
--lint-fatal	Make lint errors exit with exit code 3.	false
--ignore-unknown-fields	Ignore unknown fields in the rule groups read by the config files. This is useful when you want to extend rule files with custom metadata. Ensure that those fields are removed before loading them into the Prometheus server as it performs strict checks by default.	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, see details at https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/promtool
--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, see details at https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/promtool
--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
--ignore-unknown-fields	Ignore unknown fields in the rule files. This is useful when you want to extend rule files with custom metadata. Ensure that those fields are removed before loading them into the Prometheus server as it performs strict checks by default.	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, see details at https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/promtool

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, see details at https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/promtool

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.
--debug	Enable unit test debugging.	false
--diff	[Experimental] Print colored differential output between expected & received output.	false
--ignore-unknown-fields	Ignore unknown fields in the test files. This is useful when you want to extend rule files with custom metadata. Ensure that those fields are removed before loading them into the Prometheus server as it performs strict checks by default.	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, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch.	-9223372036854775808
--max-time	Maximum timestamp to dump, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch.	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, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch.	-9223372036854775808
--max-time	Maximum timestamp to dump, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch.	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=label_name=label_value

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, see details at https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/promtool
--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