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 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.

`promtool test rules`

Unit tests for rules.

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.

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
`—min-time`	Minimum timestamp to dump.	`-9223372036854775808`
`—max-time`	Maximum timestamp to dump.	`9223372036854775807`
`—match`	Series selector.	`{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.

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

This documentation is open-source. Please help improve it by filing issues or pull requests.