Ensure pmproxy is installed and works correctly on macOS

[tallpsmith]

Right now, pmproxy is not properly supported on macOS. There is some legacy installation and setup for it, but I can't see it's actually working.

admin@Manageds-Virtual-Machine pmproxy % cat pmproxy.log
Log for pmproxy on Manageds-Virtual-Machine.local started Tue Jan 20 00:37:59 2026

[Tue Jan 20 00:37:59] pmproxy(940) Error: pmWebTimerSetMetricRegistry: server instrumentation disabled
pmproxy: PID = 940, PDU version = 2, user = pcp (432)
pmproxy request port(s):
  sts fd   port  family address
  === ==== ===== ====== =======
  ok     9       unix   /private/var/run/pcp/pmproxy.socket
  ok    10 44322 inet   INADDR_ANY
  ok    11 44322 ipv6   INADDR_ANY
  ok    12 44323 inet   INADDR_ANY
  ok    13 44323 ipv6   INADDR_ANY
[Tue Jan 20 00:38:00] pmproxy(940) Info: Cannot connect to key server: setsockopt(SO_RCVTIMEO): Invalid argument

First cab off the rank is perhaps just ensuring libuv and valkey is installed as a dependency (former for build time, latter for runtime/integration testing)? @natoscott just wondering if we should make that a hard dependency, or whether we document it as an additional feature that can be added when one wants to?

Anyway, a thorough review of all pmproxy configuration and installation is needed (ensuring it also follows any changes done to pmcd recently to make it work, e.g. make it a 'proper' LaunchCTL daemon - see #2425 ).

Also need to include the same change made in #2425 for pmcd, similar problem.

• pmproxy Launchctl fork mode fix (like pmcd has in Fix macOS launchctl pmcd fork issue #2425)
• Explicitly include libuv in build time dependencies, and list valkey as needed runtime dependency (ensure installed during unit tests) - note: node brings in libuv and so may be implicitly there already.
• Review of pmproxy configuration for macOS to ensure it behaves nicely. (appears to start well so far)

[natoscott]

@tallpsmith the dependency we need (build time) is libuv - this enables all the valkey/redis functionality whether the daemon is running or not (usually this would be optional install). We should treat the latter more like Grafana I guess, which is a whole additional area for macOS work that'd be awesome to have. Just documenting how to get these services going is probably our best bet (but, we must have that libuv dep, without that we don't have any REST API at all, for example).

[natoscott]

| [Tue Jan 20 00:38:00] pmproxy(940) Info: Cannot connect to key server: setsockopt(SO_RCVTIMEO): Invalid argument

This area suggests we did build with libuv though, so that's good. Some triage will be needed to hunt down the source of that failure though (if valkey not running, I'd expect "Connection refused" here ... EINVAL on setsockopt is wierd and unexpected).

[tallpsmith]

Appears to work if:

1. brew install valkey and then brew services start valkey (just to force start the service)
2. Tell launchctl to init & start pmproxy (we do this for pmcd in the macOS installer, but currently not for pmproxy)

sudo launchctl bootstrap system /Library/LaunchDaemons/io.pcp.pmproxy.plist
sudo launchctl kickstart -p -k system/io.pcp.pmproxy

(These just have to be added to the bottom of build/mac/build-installer - right below the pmcd one..

Then we have it running...:

admin@Manageds-Virtual-Machine pmproxy % pcp
Performance Co-Pilot configuration on Manageds-Virtual-Machine.local:

 platform: Darwin Manageds-Virtual-Machine.local 25.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 25.2.0: Tue Nov 18 21:09:07 PST 2025; root:xnu-12377.61.12~1/RELEASE_ARM64_VMAPPLE arm64
 hardware: 4 cpus, 2 disks, 7855MB RAM
 timezone: UTC
 services: pmcd pmproxy
     pmcd: Version 7.1.0-1, 9 agents, 1 client
     pmda: root pmcd proc pmproxy sample sampledso mmv darwin simple
 pmlogger: primary logger: /private/var/log/pcp/pmlogger/Manageds-Virtual-Machine.local/20260122.05.36
admin@Manageds-Virtual-Machine pmproxy % cat pmproxy.log
Log for pmproxy on Manageds-Virtual-Machine.local started Thu Jan 22 05:48:46 2026

pmproxy: PID = 59432, PDU version = 2, user = pcp (432)
pmproxy request port(s):
  sts fd   port  family address
  === ==== ===== ====== =======
  ok     9       unix   /private/var/run/pcp/pmproxy.socket
  ok    10 44322 inet   INADDR_ANY
  ok    11 44322 ipv6   INADDR_ANY
  ok    12 44323 inet   INADDR_ANY
  ok    13 44323 ipv6   INADDR_ANY
[Thu Jan 22 05:48:46] pmproxy(59432) Info: Key server slots, schema version setup

[natoscott]

[...] we do this for pmcd in the macOS installer, but currently not for pmproxy

+1 from me for enabling it by default - REST API is pretty important these days, and nice to work with Valkey and Grafana out-of-the-box.