Pinba

Pinba is a powerful statistics server for PHP that uses the MySQL database as a read-only interface. It can accumulate and process data sent over UDP by multiple PHP processes and display statistics in simple "reports". With Pinba extension, users can measure specific parts of their code using timers with arbitrary tags.

While Pinba is not intended to be a debugging tool for production servers, it is designed to help developers locate bottlenecks in real-time and direct attention to the affected code.

Installation of Pinba is straightforward. After ensuring that all required libraries are installed, the Pinba archive should be unpacked and the configure & make process can begin. The --libdir option is required for proper installation, but the library can also be manually placed. Once installed, the Pinba plugin should be installed in the MySQL console, and a separate database and default tables should be created.

Pinba works by having each PHP process create a Protobuf message and send it to the configured Pinba server on request shutdown. The packet is sent over UDP, so it does not affect PHP's performance. The Pinba server listening to the configured port decodes arriving Protobuf messages and adds them to the temporary pool to prevent frequent locking of the main pool.

The main and temporary pools are cyclic buffers of limited sizes created on startup, and newer records always overwrite older ones. Pinba locks down the main pool of records periodically, adds records from the temporary pool, drops outdated records, and updates indexes and base reports. Tag reports are also updated if any.

Overall, Pinba is an effective tool for tracking and measuring performance bottlenecks for PHP developers. Its user-friendly interface and easy installation process make it a valuable addition to any development environment.