The command-line client (/usr/sbin/ganglia) is a small utility which is best used as an example – guiding the development of other python-based ganglia tools. The command-line client instantiates the ganglia python class (Gang). ‘Gang’ (/usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/gmon/ganglia.py) is where all the “heavy-lifting” occurs, as it contains the methods to attach to a local gmond server and parse gmond’s XML output. Other methods are included that output specific metrics and display a help message (by dynamically examining the metrics in the XML output!).