victoriametrics.com

VictoriaMetrics is a fast, cost-effective and scalable time series database. It can be used as a long-term remote storage for Prometheus.

It is recommended to use the single-node version instead of the cluster version for ingestion rates lower than a million data points per second. The single-node version scales perfectly with the number of CPU cores, RAM and available storage space. The single-node version is easier to configure and operate compared to the cluster version, so think twice before choosing the cluster version. See this question for more details.

There is also user-friendly database for logs - VictoriaLogs.

If you have questions about VictoriaMetrics, then feel free asking them at VictoriaMetrics community Slack chat, you can join it via Slack Inviter.

Contact us if you need enterprise support for VictoriaMetrics. See features available in enterprise package. Enterprise binaries can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page. See how to request a free trial license here.

VictoriaMetrics is developed at a fast pace, so it is recommended periodically checking the CHANGELOG and performing regular upgrades.

VictoriaMetrics has achieved security certifications for Database Software Development and Software-Based Monitoring Services. We apply strict security measures in everything we do. See our Security page for more details.

Prominent features #

Architecture overview #

VictoriaMetrics cluster consists of the following services:

  • vmstorage - stores the raw data and returns the queried data on the given time range for the given label filters
  • vminsert - accepts the ingested data and spreads it among vmstorage nodes according to consistent hashing over metric name and all its labels
  • vmselect - performs incoming queries by fetching the needed data from all the configured vmstorage nodes

Each service may scale independently and may run on the most suitable hardware. vmstorage nodes don’t know about each other, don’t communicate with each other and don’t share any data. This is a shared nothing architecture. It increases cluster availability, and simplifies cluster maintenance as well as cluster scaling.

Cluster Scheme

Note that vmselect despite being stateless still requires some disk space (a few GBs) for temporary caches. Refer to the -cacheDataPath command-line flag for more details.

Multitenancy #

VictoriaMetrics cluster supports multiple isolated tenants (aka namespaces). Tenants are identified by accountID or accountID:projectID, which are put inside request URLs for writes and reads. See these docs for details.

Some facts about tenants in VictoriaMetrics:

  • Each accountID and projectID is identified by an arbitrary 32-bit integer in the range [0 .. 2^32). If projectID is missing, then it is automatically assigned to 0. It is expected that other information about tenants such as auth tokens, tenant names, limits, accounting, etc. is stored in a separate relational database. This database must be managed by a separate service sitting in front of VictoriaMetrics cluster such as vmauth or vmgateway. Contact us if you need assistance with such service.

  • Tenants are automatically created when the first data point is written into the given tenant.

  • Data for all the tenants is evenly spread among available vmstorage nodes. This guarantees even load among vmstorage nodes when different tenants have different amounts of data and different query load.

  • The database performance and resource usage doesn’t depend on the number of tenants. It depends mostly on the total number of active time series in all the tenants. A time series is considered active if it received at least a single sample during the last hour or it has been touched by queries during the last hour.

  • The list of registered tenants can be obtained via http://<vmselect>:8481/admin/tenants url. See these docs.

  • VictoriaMetrics exposes various per-tenant statistics via metrics - see these docs.

See also multitenancy via labels.

Multitenancy via labels #

Writes

vminsert can accept data from multiple tenants via a special multitenant endpoints http://vminsert:8480/insert/multitenant/<suffix>, where <suffix> can be replaced with any supported suffix for data ingestion from this list. In this case the account ID and project ID are obtained from optional vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels of the incoming samples. If vm_account_id or vm_project_id labels are missing or invalid, then the corresponding account ID and project ID are set to 0. These labels are automatically removed from samples before forwarding them to vmstorage. For example, if the following samples are written into http://vminsert:8480/insert/multitenant/prometheus/api/v1/write:

http_requests_total{path="/foo",vm_account_id="42"} 12
http_requests_total{path="/bar",vm_account_id="7",vm_project_id="9"} 34

Then the http_requests_total{path="/foo"} 12 would be stored in the tenant accountID=42, projectID=0, while the http_requests_total{path="/bar"} 34 would be stored in the tenant accountID=7, projectID=9.

The vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels are extracted after applying the relabeling set via -relabelConfig command-line flag, so these labels can be set at this stage.

The vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels are also taken into account when ingesting data via non-http-based protocols such as Graphite, InfluxDB line protocol via TCP and UDP and OpenTSDB telnet put protocol.

Reads

For better performance prefer specifying tenants in read URL.

vmselect can execute Available from v1.104.0 queries over multiple tenants via special multitenant endpoints http://vmselect:8481/select/multitenant/<suffix>. Currently supported endpoints for <suffix> are:

  • /prometheus/api/v1/query
  • /prometheus/api/v1/query_range
  • /prometheus/api/v1/series
  • /prometheus/api/v1/labels
  • /prometheus/api/v1/label/<label_name>/values
  • /prometheus/api/v1/status/active_queries
  • /prometheus/api/v1/status/top_queries
  • /prometheus/api/v1/status/tsdb
  • /prometheus/api/v1/export
  • /prometheus/api/v1/export/csv
  • /vmui

It is allowed to explicitly specify tenant IDs via vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels in the query. For example, the following query fetches metric up for the tenants accountID=42 and accountID=7, projectID=9:

up{vm_account_id="7", vm_project_id="9" or vm_account_id="42"}

vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels support all operators for label matching. For example:

up{vm_account_id!="42"} # selects all the time series except those belonging to accountID=42
up{vm_account_id=~"4.*"} # selects all the time series belonging to accountIDs starting with 4

Alternatively, it is possible to use extra_filters[] and extra_label query args to apply additional filters for the query:

curl 'http://vmselect:8481/select/multitenant/prometheus/api/v1/query' \
  -d 'query=up' \
  -d 'extra_filters[]={vm_account_id="7",vm_project_id="9"}' \
  -d 'extra_filters[]={vm_account_id="42"}'

The precedence for applying filters for tenants follows this order:

  1. Filter tenants by extra_label and extra_filters filters. These filters have the highest priority and are applied first when provided through the query arguments.
  2. Filter tenants from labels selectors defined at metricsQL query expression.

Security considerations It is recommended restricting access to multitenant endpoints only to trusted sources, since untrusted source may break per-tenant data by writing unwanted samples or get access to data of arbitrary tenants.

Binaries #

Compiled binaries for the cluster version are available in the assets section of the releases page. Also see archives containing the word cluster.

Docker images for the cluster version are available here:

Building from sources #

The source code for the cluster version is available in the cluster branch.

Production builds #

There is no need to install Go on a host system since binaries are built inside the official docker container for Go. This allows reproducible builds. So install docker and run the following command:

make vminsert-prod vmselect-prod vmstorage-prod

Production binaries are built into statically linked binaries. They are put into the bin folder with -prod suffixes:

$ make vminsert-prod vmselect-prod vmstorage-prod
$ ls -1 bin
vminsert-prod
vmselect-prod
vmstorage-prod

Development Builds #

  1. Install go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.22.
  2. Run make from the repository root. It should build vmstorage, vmselect and vminsert binaries and put them into the bin folder.

Building docker images #

Run make package. It will build the following docker images locally:

  • victoriametrics/vminsert:<PKG_TAG>
  • victoriametrics/vmselect:<PKG_TAG>
  • victoriametrics/vmstorage:<PKG_TAG>

<PKG_TAG> is auto-generated image tag, which depends on source code in the repository. The <PKG_TAG> may be manually set via PKG_TAG=foobar make package.

By default, images are built on top of alpine image in order to improve debuggability. It is possible to build an image on top of any other base image by setting it via <ROOT_IMAGE> environment variable. For example, the following command builds images on top of scratch image:

ROOT_IMAGE=scratch make package

Operation #

Cluster setup #

A minimal cluster must contain the following nodes:

  • a single vmstorage node with -retentionPeriod and -storageDataPath flags
  • a single vminsert node with -storageNode=<vmstorage_host>
  • a single vmselect node with -storageNode=<vmstorage_host>

Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics supports automatic discovering and updating of vmstorage nodes. See these docs for details.

It is recommended to run at least two nodes for each service for high availability purposes. In this case the cluster continues working when a single node is temporarily unavailable and the remaining nodes can handle the increased workload. The node may be temporarily unavailable when the underlying hardware breaks, during software upgrades, migration or other maintenance tasks.

It is preferred to run many small vmstorage nodes over a few big vmstorage nodes, since this reduces the workload increase on the remaining vmstorage nodes when some of vmstorage nodes become temporarily unavailable.

An http load balancer such as vmauth or nginx must be put in front of vminsert and vmselect nodes. It must contain the following routing configs according to the url format:

  • requests starting with /insert must be routed to port 8480 on vminsert nodes.
  • requests starting with /select must be routed to port 8481 on vmselect nodes.

Ports may be altered by setting -httpListenAddr on the corresponding nodes.

It is recommended setting up monitoring for the cluster.

The following tools can simplify cluster setup:

It is possible manually setting up a toy cluster on a single host. In this case every cluster component - vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage - must have distinct values for -httpListenAddr command-line flag. This flag specifies http address for accepting http requests for monitoring and profiling. vmstorage node must have distinct values for the following additional command-line flags in order to prevent resource usage clash:

  • -storageDataPath - every vmstorage node must have a dedicated data storage.
  • -vminsertAddr - every vmstorage node must listen for a distinct tcp address for accepting data from vminsert nodes.
  • -vmselectAddr - every vmstorage node must listen for a distinct tcp address for accepting requests from vmselect nodes.

Environment variables #

All the VictoriaMetrics components allow referring environment variables in command-line flags via %{ENV_VAR} syntax. For example, -metricsAuthKey=%{METRICS_AUTH_KEY} is automatically expanded to -metricsAuthKey=top-secret if METRICS_AUTH_KEY=top-secret environment variable exists at VictoriaMetrics startup. This expansion is performed by VictoriaMetrics itself.

VictoriaMetrics recursively expands %{ENV_VAR} references in environment variables on startup. For example, FOO=%{BAR} environment variable is expanded to FOO=abc if BAR=a%{BAZ} and BAZ=bc.

Additionally, all the VictoriaMetrics components allow setting flag values via environment variables according to these rules:

  • The -envflag.enable flag must be set
  • Each . in flag names must be substituted by _ (for example -insert.maxQueueDuration <duration> will translate to insert_maxQueueDuration=<duration>)
  • For repeating flags, an alternative syntax can be used by joining the different values into one using , as separator (for example -storageNode <nodeA> -storageNode <nodeB> will translate to storageNode=<nodeA>,<nodeB>)
  • It is possible setting prefix for environment vars with -envflag.prefix. For instance, if -envflag.prefix=VM_, then env vars must be prepended with VM_

Automatic vmstorage discovery #

vminsert and vmselect components in enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics support the following approaches for automatic discovery of vmstorage nodes:

  • file-based discovery - put the list of vmstorage nodes into a file - one node address per each line - and then pass -storageNode=file:/path/to/file-with-vmstorage-list to vminsert and vmselect. It is possible to read the list of vmstorage nodes from http or https urls. For example, -storageNode=file:http://some-host/vmstorage-list would read the list of storage nodes from http://some-host/vmstorage-list. The list of discovered vmstorage nodes is automatically updated when the file contents changes. The update frequency can be controlled with -storageNode.discoveryInterval command-line flag.

  • DNS SRV - pass srv+some-name value to -storageNode command-line flag. In this case the provided some-name is resolved into tcp addresses of vmstorage nodes. The list of discovered vmstorage nodes is automatically updated at vminsert and vmselect when it changes behind the some-name DNS SRV record. The update frequency can be controlled with -storageNode.discoveryInterval command-line flag.

It is possible passing multiple file and DNS SRV names to -storageNode command-line flag. In this case all these names are resolved to tcp addresses of vmstorage nodes to connect to. For example, -storageNode=file:/path/to/local-vmstorage-list -storageNode='srv+vmstorage-hot' -storageNode='srv+vmstorage-cold'.

It is OK to pass regular static vmstorage addresses together with file and DNS SRV addresses at -storageNode. For example, -storageNode=vmstorage1,vmstorage2 -storageNode='srv+vmstorage-autodiscovery'.

The discovered addresses can be filtered with optional -storageNode.filter command-line flag, which can contain arbitrary regular expression filter. For example, -storageNode.filter='^[^:]+:8400$' would leave discovered addresses ending with 8400 port only, e.g. the default port used for sending data from vminsert to vmstorage node according to -vminsertAddr command-line flag.

The currently discovered vmstorage nodes can be monitored with vm_rpc_vmstorage_is_reachable and vm_rpc_vmstorage_is_read_only metrics.

Security #

General security recommendations:

  • All the VictoriaMetrics cluster components must run in protected private network without direct access from untrusted networks such as Internet.
  • External clients must access vminsert and vmselect via auth proxy such as vmauth or vmgateway.
  • The auth proxy must accept auth tokens from untrusted networks only via https in order to protect the auth tokens from MitM attacks.
  • It is recommended using distinct auth tokens for distinct tenants in order to reduce potential damage in case of compromised auth token for some tenants.
  • Prefer using lists of allowed API endpoints, while disallowing access to other endpoints when configuring auth proxy in front of vminsert and vmselect. This minimizes attack surface.

See also security recommendation for single-node VictoriaMetrics and the general security page at VictoriaMetrics website.

mTLS protection #

By default vminsert and vmselect nodes accept http requests at 8480 and 8481 ports accordingly (these ports can be changed via -httpListenAddr command-line flags), since it is expected that vmauth is used for authorization and TLS termination in front of vminsert and vmselect. Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics supports the ability to accept mTLS requests at 8480 and 8481 ports for vminsert and vmselect nodes, by specifying -tls and -mtls command-line flags. For example, the following command runs vmselect, which accepts only mTLS requests at port 8481:

./vmselect -tls -mtls

By default system-wide TLS Root CA is used for verifying client certificates if -mtls command-line flag is specified. It is possible to specify custom TLS Root CA via -mtlsCAFile command-line flag.

By default vminsert and vmselect nodes use unencrypted connections to vmstorage nodes, since it is assumed that all the cluster components run in a protected environment. Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics provides optional support for mTLS connections between cluster components. Pass -cluster.tls=true command-line flag to vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage nodes in order to enable mTLS protection. Additionally, vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage must be configured with mTLS certificates via -cluster.tlsCertFile, -cluster.tlsKeyFile command-line options. These certificates are mutually verified when vminsert and vmselect dial vmstorage.

The following optional command-line flags related to mTLS are supported:

  • -cluster.tlsInsecureSkipVerify can be set at vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage in order to disable peer certificate verification. Note that this breaks security.
  • -cluster.tlsCAFile can be set at vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage for verifying peer certificates issued with custom certificate authority. By default, system-wide certificate authority is used for peer certificate verification.
  • -cluster.tlsCipherSuites can be set to the list of supported TLS cipher suites at vmstorage. See the list of supported TLS cipher suites.

When vmselect runs with -clusternativeListenAddr command-line option, then it can be configured with -clusternative.tls* options similar to -cluster.tls* for accepting mTLS connections from top-level vmselect nodes in multi-level cluster setup.

See these docs on how to set up mTLS in VictoriaMetrics cluster.

Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page. See how to request a free trial license here.

Monitoring #

All the cluster components expose various metrics in Prometheus-compatible format at /metrics page on the TCP port set in -httpListenAddr command-line flag. By default, the following TCP ports are used:

  • vminsert - 8480
  • vmselect - 8481
  • vmstorage - 8482

It is recommended setting up vmagent or Prometheus to scrape /metrics pages from all the cluster components, so they can be monitored and analyzed with the official Grafana dashboard for VictoriaMetrics cluster or an alternative dashboard for VictoriaMetrics cluster. Graphs on these dashboards contain useful hints - hover the i icon at the top left corner of each graph in order to read it.

If you use Google Cloud Managed Prometheus for scraping metrics from VictoriaMetrics components, then pass -metrics.exposeMetadata command-line to them, so they add TYPE and HELP comments per each exposed metric at /metrics page. See these docs for details.

It is recommended setting up alerts in vmalert or in Prometheus from this list. See more details in the article VictoriaMetrics Monitoring.

Cardinality limiter #

vmstorage nodes can be configured with limits on the number of unique time series across all the tenants with the following command-line flags:

  • -storage.maxHourlySeries is the limit on the number of active time series during the last hour.
  • -storage.maxDailySeries is the limit on the number of unique time series during the day. This limit can be used for limiting daily time series churn rate.

Note that these limits are set and applied individually per each vmstorage node in the cluster. So, if the cluster has N vmstorage nodes, then the cluster-level limits will be N times bigger than the per-vmstorage limits.

See more details about cardinality limiter in these docs.

Troubleshooting #

Troubleshooting docs for single-node VictoriaMetrics apply to VictoriaMetrics cluster as well.

Readonly mode #

vmstorage nodes automatically switch to readonly mode when the directory pointed by -storageDataPath contains less than -storage.minFreeDiskSpaceBytes of free space. vminsert nodes stop sending data to such nodes and start re-routing the data to the remaining vmstorage nodes.

vmstorage sets vm_storage_is_read_only metric at http://vmstorage:8482/metrics to 1 when it enters read-only mode. The metric is set to 0 when the vmstorage isn’t in read-only mode.

URL format #

The main differences between URL formats of cluster and Single server versions are that cluster has separate components for read and ingestion path, and because of multi-tenancy support. Also in the cluster version the /prometheus/api/v1 endpoint ingests jsonl, csv, native and prometheus data formats not only prometheus data. Check practical examples of VictoriaMetrics API here.

  • URLs for data ingestion: http://<vminsert>:8480/insert/<accountID>/<suffix>, where:

    • <accountID> is an arbitrary 32-bit integer identifying namespace for data ingestion (aka tenant). It is possible to set it as accountID:projectID, where projectID is also arbitrary 32-bit integer. If projectID isn’t set, then it equals to 0. See multitenancy docs for more details. The <accountID> can be set to multitenant string, e.g. http://<vminsert>:8480/insert/multitenant/<suffix>. Such urls accept data from multiple tenants specified via vm_account_id and vm_project_id labels. See multitenancy via labels for more details.
    • <suffix> may have the following values:

  • URLs for Prometheus querying API: http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/prometheus/<suffix>, where:

    • <accountID> is an arbitrary number identifying data namespace for the query (aka tenant)
    • <suffix> may have the following values:
      • api/v1/query - performs PromQL instant query.
      • api/v1/query_range - performs PromQL range query.
      • api/v1/series - performs series query.
      • api/v1/labels - returns a list of label names.
      • api/v1/label/<label_name>/values - returns values for the given <label_name> according to the API.
      • federate - returns federated metrics.
      • api/v1/export - exports raw data in JSON line format. See this article for details.
      • api/v1/export/native - exports raw data in native binary format. It may be imported into another VictoriaMetrics via api/v1/import/native (see above).
      • api/v1/export/csv - exports data in CSV. It may be imported into another VictoriaMetrics via api/v1/import/csv (see above).
      • api/v1/series/count - returns the total number of series.
      • api/v1/status/tsdb - for time series stats. See these docs for details.
      • api/v1/status/active_queries - for currently executed active queries. Note that every vmselect maintains an independent list of active queries, which is returned in the response.
      • api/v1/status/top_queries - for listing the most frequently executed queries and queries taking the most duration.
      • metric-relabel-debug - for debugging relabeling rules.

  • URLs for Graphite Metrics API: http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/graphite/<suffix>, where:

    • <accountID> is an arbitrary number identifying data namespace for query (aka tenant)
    • <suffix> may have the following values:
      • render - implements Graphite Render API. See these docs.
      • metrics/find - searches Graphite metrics. See these docs.
      • metrics/expand - expands Graphite metrics. See these docs.
      • metrics/index.json - returns all the metric names. See these docs.
      • tags/tagSeries - registers time series. See these docs.
      • tags/tagMultiSeries - register multiple time series. See these docs.
      • tags - returns tag names. See these docs.
      • tags/<tag_name> - returns tag values for the given <tag_name>. See these docs.
      • tags/findSeries - returns series matching the given expr. See these docs.
      • tags/autoComplete/tags - returns tags matching the given tagPrefix and/or expr. See these docs.
      • tags/autoComplete/values - returns tag values matching the given valuePrefix and/or expr. See these docs.
      • tags/delSeries - deletes series matching the given path. See these docs.

  • URL with basic Web UI: http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/vmui/.

  • URL for query stats across all tenants: http://<vmselect>:8481/api/v1/status/top_queries. It lists with the most frequently executed queries and queries taking the most duration.

  • URL for time series deletion: http://<vmselect>:8481/delete/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/admin/tsdb/delete_series?match[]=<timeseries_selector_for_delete>. Note that the delete_series handler should be used only in exceptional cases such as deletion of accidentally ingested incorrect time series. It shouldn’t be used on a regular basis, since it carries non-zero overhead.

  • URL for listing tenants with the ingested data on the given time range: http://<vmselect>:8481/admin/tenants?start=...&end=... . The start and end query args are optional. If they are missing, then all the tenants with at least one sample stored in VictoriaMetrics are returned.

  • URL for accessing vmalerts UI: http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/prometheus/vmalert/. This URL works only when -vmalert.proxyURL flag is set. See more about vmalert here.

  • vmstorage nodes provide the following HTTP endpoints on 8482 port:

    • /internal/force_merge - initiate forced compactions on the given vmstorage node.
    • /snapshot/create - create instant snapshot, which can be used for backups in background. Snapshots are created in <storageDataPath>/snapshots folder, where <storageDataPath> is the corresponding command-line flag value.
    • /snapshot/list - list available snapshots.
    • /snapshot/delete?snapshot=<id> - delete the given snapshot.
    • /snapshot/delete_all - delete all the snapshots.

    Snapshots may be created independently on each vmstorage node. There is no need in synchronizing snapshots’ creation across vmstorage nodes.

Cluster resizing and scalability #

Cluster performance and capacity can be scaled up in two ways:

  • By adding more resources (CPU, RAM, disk IO, disk space, network bandwidth) to existing nodes in the cluster (aka vertical scalability).
  • By adding more nodes to the cluster (aka horizontal scalability).

General recommendations for cluster scalability:

  • Adding more CPU and RAM to existing vmselect nodes improves the performance for heavy queries, which process big number of time series with big number of raw samples. See this article on how to detect and optimize heavy queries.

  • Adding more vmstorage nodes (aka horizontal scaling) increases the number of active time series the cluster can handle. This also increases query performance over time series with high churn rate, since every vmstorage node contains lower number of time series when the number of vmstorage nodes increases.

    The cluster stability is also improved with the number of vmstorage nodes, since active vmstorage nodes need to handle lower additional workload when some of vmstorage nodes become unavailable. For example, if one node out of 3 nodes is unavailable, then 1/3=33% of the load is re-distributed across 2 remaining nodes, so per-node workload increase is (1/3/2)/(1/3) = 1/2 = 50%. If one node out of 10 nodes is unavailable, then 1/10=10% of the load is re-distributed across 9 remaining nodes, so per-node workload increase is (1/10/9)/(1/10) = 1/9 =~ 11%.

  • Adding more CPU and RAM to existing vmstorage nodes (aka vertical scaling) increases the number of active time series the cluster can handle. It is preferred to add more vmstorage nodes over adding more CPU and RAM to existing vmstorage nodes, since higher number of vmstorage nodes increases cluster stability and improves query performance over time series with high churn rate.

  • Adding more vminsert nodes increases the maximum possible data ingestion speed, since the ingested data may be split among bigger number of vminsert nodes.

  • Adding more vmselect nodes increases the maximum possible queries rate, since the incoming concurrent requests may be split among bigger number of vmselect nodes.

Steps to add vmstorage node:

  1. Start new vmstorage node with the same -retentionPeriod as existing nodes in the cluster.
  2. Gradually restart all the vmselect nodes with new -storageNode arg containing <new_vmstorage_host>.
  3. Gradually restart all the vminsert nodes with new -storageNode arg containing <new_vmstorage_host>.

In order to handle uneven disk space usage distribution after adding new vmstorage node it is possible to update vminsert configuration to route newly ingested metrics only to new storage nodes. Once disk usage will be similar configuration can be updated to include all nodes again. Note that vmselect nodes need to reference all storage nodes for querying.

Updating / reconfiguring cluster nodes #

All the node types - vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage - may be updated via graceful shutdown. Send SIGINT signal to the corresponding process, wait until it finishes and then start new version with new configs.

There are the following cluster update / upgrade approaches exist:

No downtime strategy #

Gracefully restart every node in the cluster one-by-one with the updated config / upgraded binary.

It is recommended restarting the nodes in the following order:

  1. Restart vmstorage nodes.
  2. Restart vminsert nodes.
  3. Restart vmselect nodes.

This strategy allows upgrading the cluster without downtime if the following conditions are met:

  • The cluster has at least a pair of nodes of each type - vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage, so it can continue to accept new data and serve incoming requests when a single node is temporary unavailable during its restart. See cluster availability docs for details.
  • The cluster has enough compute resources (CPU, RAM, network bandwidth, disk IO) for processing the current workload when a single node of any type (vminsert, vmselect or vmstorage) is temporarily unavailable during its restart.
  • The updated config / upgraded binary is compatible with the remaining components in the cluster. See the CHANGELOG for compatibility notes between different releases.

If at least a single condition isn’t met, then the rolling restart may result in cluster unavailability during the config update / version upgrade. In this case the following strategy is recommended.

Minimum downtime strategy #

  1. Gracefully stop all the vminsert and vmselect nodes in parallel.
  2. Gracefully restart all the vmstorage nodes in parallel.
  3. Start all the vminsert and vmselect nodes in parallel.

The cluster is unavailable for data ingestion and querying when performing the steps above. The downtime is minimized by restarting cluster nodes in parallel at every step above. The minimum downtime strategy has the following benefits comparing to no downtime strategy:

  • It allows performing config update / version upgrade with minimum disruption when the previous config / version is incompatible with the new config / version.
  • It allows performing config update / version upgrade with minimum disruption when the cluster has no enough compute resources (CPU, RAM, disk IO, network bandwidth) for rolling upgrade.
  • It allows minimizing the duration of config update / version upgrade for clusters with big number of nodes of for clusters with big vmstorage nodes, which may take long time for graceful restart.

Improving re-routing performance during restart #

vmstorage nodes may experience increased usage for CPU, RAM and disk IO during rolling restarts, since they need to process higher load when some of vmstorage nodes are temporarily unavailable in the cluster.

The following approaches can be used for reducing resource usage at vmstorage nodes during rolling restart:

  • To pass -disableReroutingOnUnavailable command-line flag to vminsert nodes, so they pause data ingestion when vmstorage nodes are restarted instead of re-routing the ingested data to other available vmstorage nodes. Note that the -disableReroutingOnUnavailable flag may pause data ingestion for long time when some vmstorage nodes are unavailable for long time.

  • To pass bigger values to -storage.vminsertConnsShutdownDuration (available from v1.95.0) command-line flag at vmstorage nodes.In this case vmstorage increases the interval between gradual closing of vminsert connections during graceful shutdown. This reduces data ingestion slowdown during rollout restarts.

    Make sure that the -storage.vminsertConnsShutdownDuration is smaller than the graceful shutdown timeout configured at the system which manages vmstorage (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, systemd, etc.). Otherwise the system may kill vmstorage node before it finishes gradual closing of vminsert connections.

See also minimum downtime strategy.

Cluster availability #

VictoriaMetrics cluster architecture prioritizes availability over data consistency. This means that the cluster remains available for data ingestion and data querying if some of its components are temporarily unavailable.

VictoriaMetrics cluster remains available if the following conditions are met:

  • HTTP load balancer must stop routing requests to unavailable vminsert and vmselect nodes (vmauth stops routing requests to unavailable nodes).

  • At least a single vminsert node must remain available in the cluster for processing data ingestion workload. The remaining active vminsert nodes must have enough compute capacity (CPU, RAM, network bandwidth) for handling the current data ingestion workload. If the remaining active vminsert nodes have no enough resources for processing the data ingestion workload, then arbitrary delays may occur during data ingestion. See capacity planning and cluster resizing docs for more details.

  • At least a single vmselect node must remain available in the cluster for processing query workload. The remaining active vmselect nodes must have enough compute capacity (CPU, RAM, network bandwidth, disk IO) for handling the current query workload. If the remaining active vmselect nodes have no enough resources for processing query workload, then arbitrary failures and delays may occur during query processing. See capacity planning and cluster resizing docs for more details.

  • At least a single vmstorage node must remain available in the cluster for accepting newly ingested data and for processing incoming queries. The remaining active vmstorage nodes must have enough compute capacity (CPU, RAM, network bandwidth, disk IO, free disk space) for handling the current workload. If the remaining active vmstorage nodes have no enough resources for processing query workload, then arbitrary failures and delay may occur during data ingestion and query processing. See capacity planning and cluster resizing docs for more details.

The cluster works in the following way when some of vmstorage nodes are unavailable:

  • vminsert re-routes newly ingested data from unavailable vmstorage nodes to remaining healthy vmstorage nodes. This guarantees that the newly ingested data is properly saved if the healthy vmstorage nodes have enough CPU, RAM, disk IO and network bandwidth for processing the increased data ingestion workload. vminsert spreads evenly the additional data among the healthy vmstorage nodes in order to spread evenly the increased load on these nodes. During re-routing, healthy vmstorage nodes will experience higher resource usage and increase in number of active time series.

  • vmselect continues serving queries if at least a single vmstorage nodes is available. It marks responses as partial for queries served from the remaining healthy vmstorage nodes, since such responses may miss historical data stored on the temporarily unavailable vmstorage nodes. Every partial JSON response contains "isPartial": true option. If you prefer consistency over availability, then run vmselect nodes with -search.denyPartialResponse command-line flag. In this case vmselect returns an error if at least a single vmstorage node is unavailable. Another option is to pass deny_partial_response=1 query arg to requests to vmselect nodes.

    vmselect also accepts -replicationFactor=N command-line flag. This flag instructs vmselect to return full response if less than -replicationFactor vmstorage nodes are unavailable during querying, since it assumes that the remaining vmstorage nodes contain the full data. See these docs for details.

    It is also possible to configure independent replication factor per distinct vmstorage groups - see these docs.

vmselect doesn’t serve partial responses for API handlers returning raw datapoints, since users usually expect this data is always complete. The following handlers return raw samples:

Data replication can be used for increasing storage durability. See these docs for details.

Capacity planning #

VictoriaMetrics uses lower amounts of CPU, RAM and storage space on production workloads compared to competing solutions (Prometheus, Thanos, Cortex, TimescaleDB, InfluxDB, QuestDB, M3DB) according to our case studies.

Each node type - vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage - can run on the most suitable hardware. Cluster capacity scales linearly with the available resources. The needed amounts of CPU and RAM per each node type highly depends on the workload - the number of active time series, series churn rate, query types, query qps, etc. It is recommended setting up a test VictoriaMetrics cluster for your production workload and iteratively scaling per-node resources and the number of nodes per node type until the cluster becomes stable. It is recommended setting up monitoring for the cluster. It helps to determine bottlenecks in cluster setup. It is also recommended following the troubleshooting docs.

The needed storage space for the given retention (the retention is set via -retentionPeriod command-line flag at vmstorage) can be extrapolated from disk space usage in a test run. For example, if the storage space usage is 10GB after a day-long test run on a production workload, then it will need at least 10GB*100=1TB of disk space for -retentionPeriod=100d (100-days retention period). Storage space usage can be monitored with the official Grafana dashboard for VictoriaMetrics cluster.

It is recommended leaving the following amounts of spare resources:

  • 50% of free RAM across all the node types for reducing the probability of OOM (out of memory) crashes and slowdowns during temporary spikes in workload.
  • 50% of spare CPU across all the node types for reducing the probability of slowdowns during temporary spikes in workload.
  • At least 20% of free storage space at the directory pointed by -storageDataPath command-line flag at vmstorage nodes. See also -storage.minFreeDiskSpaceBytes command-line flag description for vmstorage.

Increase free storage space and -storage.minFreeDiskSpaceBytes to match at least the amount of data you plan to ingest in a calendar month: on each vmstorage pod, the monthly final deduplication process will temporarily need as much space as is used for the previous month’s data, before it can free up space. For example, if you have a 3 month retention period and you want to keep at least 10 % space free at all times, you could pick 35 % of your total space as value. When some of your vmstorage pods are in read-only mode, the remaining pods will have a higher share of the total data ingestion, and will therefore need more free space the next month.

Some capacity planning tips for VictoriaMetrics cluster:

  • The replication increases the amounts of needed resources for the cluster by up to N times where N is replication factor. This is because vminsert stores N copies of every ingested sample on distinct vmstorage nodes. These copies are de-duplicated by vmselect during querying. The most cost-efficient and performant solution for data durability is to rely on replicated durable persistent disks such as Google Compute persistent disks instead of using the replication at VictoriaMetrics level.
  • It is recommended to run a cluster with big number of small vmstorage nodes instead of a cluster with small number of big vmstorage nodes. This increases chances that the cluster remains available and stable when some of vmstorage nodes are temporarily unavailable during maintenance events such as upgrades, configuration changes or migrations. For example, when a cluster contains 10 vmstorage nodes and a single node becomes temporarily unavailable, then the workload on the remaining 9 nodes increases by 1/9=11%. When a cluster contains 3 vmstorage nodes and a single node becomes temporarily unavailable, then the workload on the remaining 2 nodes increases by 1/2=50%. The remaining vmstorage nodes may have no enough free capacity for handling the increased workload. In this case the cluster may become overloaded, which may result to decreased availability and stability.
  • Cluster capacity for active time series can be increased by increasing RAM and CPU resources per each vmstorage node or by adding new vmstorage nodes.
  • Query latency can be reduced by increasing CPU resources per each vmselect node, since each incoming query is processed by a single vmselect node. Performance for heavy queries scales with the number of available CPU cores at vmselect node, since vmselect processes time series referred by the query on all the available CPU cores.
  • If the cluster needs to process incoming queries at a high rate, then its capacity can be increased by adding more vmselect nodes, so incoming queries could be spread among bigger number of vmselect nodes.
  • By default vminsert compresses the data it sends to vmstorage in order to reduce network bandwidth usage. The compression takes additional CPU resources at vminsert. If vminsert nodes have limited CPU, then the compression can be disabled by passing -rpc.disableCompression command-line flag at vminsert nodes.
  • By default vmstorage compresses the data it sends to vmselect during queries in order to reduce network bandwidth usage. The compression takes additional CPU resources at vmstorage. If vmstorage nodes have limited CPU, then the compression can be disabled by passing -rpc.disableCompression command-line flag at vmstorage nodes.

See also resource usage limits docs.

Resource usage limits #

By default, cluster components of VictoriaMetrics are tuned for an optimal resource usage under typical workloads. Some workloads may need fine-grained resource usage limits. In these cases the following command-line flags may be useful:

  • -memory.allowedPercent and -memory.allowedBytes limit the amounts of memory, which may be used for various internal caches at all the cluster components of VictoriaMetrics - vminsert, vmselect and vmstorage. Note that VictoriaMetrics components may use more memory, since these flags don’t limit additional memory, which may be needed on a per-query basis.
  • -search.maxMemoryPerQuery limits the amounts of memory, which can be used for processing a single query at vmselect node. Queries, which need more memory, are rejected. Heavy queries, which select big number of time series, may exceed the per-query memory limit by a small percent. The total memory limit for concurrently executed queries can be estimated as -search.maxMemoryPerQuery multiplied by -search.maxConcurrentRequests.
  • -search.maxUniqueTimeseries at vmstorage component limits the number of unique time series a single query can find and process. This means that the maximum memory usage and CPU usage a single query can use at vmstorage is proportional to -search.maxUniqueTimeseries. By default, vmstorage calculates this limit automatically based on the available memory and the maximum number of concurrent read requests (see -search.maxConcurrentRequests). The calculated limit will be printed during process start-up logs and exposed as vm_search_max_unique_timeseries metric.
  • -search.maxUniqueTimeseries at vmselect adjusts the limit with the same name at vmstorage. The vmstorage limit can be adjusted only to lower value and can’t exceed it. By default, vmselect doesn’t apply limit adjustments.
  • -search.maxQueryDuration at vmselect limits the duration of a single query. If the query takes longer than the given duration, then it is canceled. This allows saving CPU and RAM at vmselect and vmstorage when executing unexpectedly heavy queries. The limit can be overridden to a smaller value by passing timeout GET parameter.
  • -search.maxConcurrentRequests at vmselect and vmstorage limits the number of concurrent requests a single vmselect / vmstorage node can process. Bigger number of concurrent requests usually require bigger amounts of memory at both vmselect and vmstorage. For example, if a single query needs 100 MiB of additional memory during its execution, then 100 concurrent queries may need 100 * 100 MiB = 10 GiB of additional memory. So it is better to limit the number of concurrent queries, while pausing additional incoming queries if the concurrency limit is reached. vmselect and vmstorage provides -search.maxQueueDuration command-line flag for limiting the maximum wait time for paused queries. See also -search.maxMemoryPerQuery command-line flag at vmselect.
  • -search.maxQueueDuration at vmselect and vmstorage limits the maximum duration queries may wait for execution when -search.maxConcurrentRequests concurrent queries are executed.
  • -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI at vmselect enables ignoring of match[], extra_filters[] and extra_label query args at /api/v1/labels and /api/v1/label/…/values. This may be useful for reducing the load on vmstorage if the provided extra filters match too many time series. The downside is that the endpoints can return labels and series, which do not match the provided extra filters.
  • -search.maxSamplesPerSeries at vmselect limits the number of raw samples the query can process per each time series. vmselect processes raw samples sequentially per each found time series during the query. It unpacks raw samples on the selected time range per each time series into memory and then applies the given rollup function. The -search.maxSamplesPerSeries command-line flag allows limiting memory usage at vmselect in the case when the query is executed on a time range, which contains hundreds of millions of raw samples per each located time series.
  • -search.maxSamplesPerQuery at vmselect limits the number of raw samples a single query can process. This allows limiting CPU usage at vmselect for heavy queries.
  • -search.maxResponseSeries at vmselect limits the number of time series a single query can return from /api/v1/query and /api/v1/query_range.
  • -search.maxPointsPerTimeseries limits the number of calculated points, which can be returned per each matching time series from range query.
  • -search.maxPointsSubqueryPerTimeseries limits the number of calculated points, which can be generated per each matching time series during subquery evaluation.
  • -search.maxSeriesPerAggrFunc limits the number of time series, which can be generated by MetricsQL aggregate functions in a single query.
  • -search.maxSeries at vmselect limits the number of time series, which may be returned from /api/v1/series. This endpoint is used mostly by Grafana for auto-completion of metric names, label names and label values. Queries to this endpoint may take big amounts of CPU time and memory at vmstorage and vmselect when the database contains big number of unique time series because of high churn rate. In this case it might be useful to set the -search.maxSeries to quite low value in order limit CPU and memory usage.
  • -search.maxDeleteSeries at vmselect limits the number of unique time series that can be deleted by a single /api/v1/admin/tsdb/delete_series call. Deleting too many time series may require big amount of CPU and memory at vmstorage and this limit guards against unplanned resource usage spikes. Also see How to delete time series section to learn about different ways of deleting series.
  • -search.maxTagKeys at vmstorage limits the number of items, which may be returned from /api/v1/labels. This endpoint is used mostly by Grafana for auto-completion of label names. Queries to this endpoint may take big amounts of CPU time and memory at vmstorage and vmselect when the database contains big number of unique time series because of high churn rate. In this case it might be useful to set the -search.maxTagKeys to quite low value in order to limit CPU and memory usage. See also -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration and -search.maxLabelsAPISeries.
  • -search.maxTagValues at vmstorage limits the number of items, which may be returned from /api/v1/label/…/values. This endpoint is used mostly by Grafana for auto-completion of label values. Queries to this endpoint may take big amounts of CPU time and memory at vmstorage and vmselect when the database contains big number of unique time series because of high churn rate. In this case it might be useful to set the -search.maxTagValues to quite low value in order to limit CPU and memory usage. See also -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration and -search.maxLabelsAPISeries.
  • -search.maxLabelsAPISeries at vmselect limits the number of time series, which can be scanned when performing /api/v1/labels, /api/v1/label/…/values or /api/v1/series requests. These endpoints are used mostly by Grafana for auto-completion of label names and label values. Queries to these endpoints may take big amounts of CPU time and memory when the database contains big number of unique time series because of high churn rate. In this case it might be useful to set the -search.maxLabelsAPISeries to quite low value in order to limit CPU and memory usage. See also -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration and -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI.
  • -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration at vmselect limits the duration for requests to /api/v1/labels, /api/v1/label/…/values or /api/v1/series. The limit can be overridden to a smaller value by passing timeout GET parameter. These endpoints are used mostly by Grafana for auto-completion of label names and label values. Queries to these endpoints may take big amounts of CPU time and memory when the database contains big number of unique time series because of high churn rate. In this case it might be useful to set the -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration to quite low value in order to limit CPU and memory usage. See also -search.maxLabelsAPISeries and -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI.
  • -storage.maxDailySeries at vmstorage can be used for limiting the number of time series seen per day aka time series churn rate. See cardinality limiter docs.
  • -storage.maxHourlySeries at vmstorage can be used for limiting the number of active time series. See cardinality limiter docs.

See also capacity planning docs and cardinality limiter in vmagent.

High availability #

The database is considered highly available if it continues accepting new data and processing incoming queries when some of its components are temporarily unavailable. VictoriaMetrics cluster is highly available according to this definition - see cluster availability docs.

It is recommended to run all the components for a single cluster in the same subnetwork with high bandwidth, low latency and low error rates. This improves cluster performance and availability. It isn’t recommended spreading components for a single cluster across multiple availability zones, since cross-AZ network usually has lower bandwidth, higher latency and higher error rates comparing the network inside a single AZ.

If you need multi-AZ setup, then it is recommended running independent clusters in each AZ and setting up vmagent in front of these clusters, so it could replicate incoming data into all the cluster - see these docs for details. Then an additional vmselect nodes can be configured for reading the data from multiple clusters according to these docs.

Multi-level cluster setup #

vmselect nodes can be queried by other vmselect nodes if they run with -clusternativeListenAddr command-line flag. For example, if vmselect is started with -clusternativeListenAddr=:8401, then it can accept queries from another vmselect nodes at TCP port 8401 in the same way as vmstorage nodes do. This allows chaining vmselect nodes and building multi-level cluster topologies. For example, the top-level vmselect node can query second-level vmselect nodes in different availability zones (AZ), while the second-level vmselect nodes can query vmstorage nodes in local AZ. See also vmstorage groups at vmselect.

vminsert nodes can accept data from another vminsert nodes if they run with -clusternativeListenAddr command-line flag. For example, if vminsert is started with -clusternativeListenAddr=:8400, then it can accept data from another vminsert nodes at TCP port 8400 in the same way as vmstorage nodes do. This allows chaining vminsert nodes and building multi-level cluster topologies. For example, the top-level vminsert node can replicate data among the second level of vminsert nodes located in distinct availability zones (AZ), while the second-level vminsert nodes can spread the data among vmstorage nodes in local AZ.

The multi-level cluster setup for vminsert nodes has the following shortcomings because of synchronous replication and data sharding:

  • Data ingestion speed is limited by the slowest link to AZ.
  • vminsert nodes at top level re-route incoming data to the remaining AZs when some AZs are temporarily unavailable. This results in data gaps at AZs which were temporarily unavailable.

These issues are addressed by vmagent when it runs in multitenancy mode. vmagent buffers data, which must be sent to a particular AZ, when this AZ is temporarily unavailable. The buffer is stored on disk. The buffered data is sent to AZ as soon as it becomes available.

vmstorage groups at vmselect #

vmselect can be configured to query multiple distinct groups of vmstorage nodes with individual -replicationFactor per each group. The following format for -storageNode command-line flag value should be used for assigning a particular addr of vmstorage to a particular groupName - -storageNode=groupName/addr. The groupName can contain arbitrary value. The only rule is that every vmstorage group must have an unique name.

For example, the following command runs vmselect, which continues returning full responses if up to one node per each group is temporarily unavailable because the given -replicationFactor=2 is applied individually per each group:

/path/to/vmselect \
 -replicationFactor=2 \
 -storageNode=g1/host1,g1/host2,g1/host3 \
 -storageNode=g2/host4,g2/host5,g2/host6 \
 -storageNode=g3/host7,g3/host8,g3/host9

It is possible specifying distinct -replicationFactor per each group via the following format - -replicationFactor=groupName:rf. For example, the following command runs vmselect, which uses -replicationFactor=3 for the group g1, -replicationFactor=2 for the group g2 and -replicationFactor=1 for the group g3:

/path/to/vmselect \
 -replicationFactor=g1:3 \
 -storageNode=g1/host1,g1/host2,g1/host3 \
 -replicationFactor=g2:2 \
 -storageNode=g2/host4,g2/host5,g2/host6 \
 -replicationFactor=g3:1 \
 -storageNode=g3/host4,g3/host5,g3/host6

If every ingested sample is replicated across multiple vmstorage groups, then pass -globalReplicationFactor=N command-line flag to vmselect, so it could continue returning full responses if up to N-1 vmstorage groups are temporarily unavailable. For example, the following command runs vmselect, which continues returning full responses if any number of vmstorage nodes in a single vmstorage group are temporarily unavailable:

/path/to/vmselect \
 -globalReplicationFactor=2 \
 -storageNode=g1/host1,g1/host2,g1/host3 \
 -storageNode=g2/host4,g2/host5,g2/host6 \
 -storageNode=g3/host7,g3/host8,g3/host9

It is OK to mix -replicationFactor and -globalReplicationFactor. For example, the following command runs vmselect, which continues returning full responses if any number of vmstorage nodes in a single vmstorage group are temporarily unavailable and the remaining groups contain up to two unavailable vmstorage node:

/path/to/vmselect \
 -globalReplicationFactor=2 \
 -replicationFactor=3 \
 -storageNode=g1/host1,g1/host2,g1/host3 \
 -storageNode=g2/host4,g2/host5,g2/host6 \
 -storageNode=g3/host7,g3/host8,g3/host9

See also multi-level cluster setup.

Helm #

Helm chart simplifies managing cluster version of VictoriaMetrics in Kubernetes. It is available in the helm-charts repository.

Kubernetes operator #

K8s operator simplifies managing VictoriaMetrics components in Kubernetes.

Replication and data safety #

By default, VictoriaMetrics offloads replication to the underlying storage pointed by -storageDataPath such as Google compute persistent disk, which guarantees data durability. VictoriaMetrics supports application-level replication if replicated durable persistent disks cannot be used for some reason.

The replication can be enabled by passing -replicationFactor=N command-line flag to vminsert. This instructs vminsert to store N copies for every ingested sample on N distinct vmstorage nodes. This guarantees that all the stored data remains available for querying if up to N-1 vmstorage nodes are unavailable.

Passing -replicationFactor=N command-line flag to vmselect instructs it to not mark responses as partial if less than -replicationFactor vmstorage nodes are unavailable during the query. See cluster availability docs for details.

The cluster must contain at least 2*N-1 vmstorage nodes, where N is replication factor, in order to maintain the given replication factor for newly ingested data when N-1 of storage nodes are unavailable.

VictoriaMetrics stores timestamps with millisecond precision, so -dedup.minScrapeInterval=1ms command-line flag must be passed to vmselect nodes when the replication is enabled, so they could de-duplicate replicated samples obtained from distinct vmstorage nodes during querying. If duplicate data is pushed to VictoriaMetrics from identically configured vmagent instances or Prometheus instances, then the -dedup.minScrapeInterval must be set to scrape_interval from scrape configs according to deduplication docs.

Note that replication doesn’t save from disaster, so it is recommended performing regular backups. See these docs for details.

Note that the replication increases resource usage - CPU, RAM, disk space, network bandwidth - by up to -replicationFactor=N times, because vminsert stores N copies of incoming data to distinct vmstorage nodes and vmselect needs to de-duplicate the replicated data obtained from vmstorage nodes during querying. So it is more cost-effective to offload the replication to underlying replicated durable storage pointed by -storageDataPath such as Google Compute Engine persistent disk, which is protected from data loss and data corruption. It also provides consistently high performance and may be resized without downtime. HDD-based persistent disks should be enough for the majority of use cases. It is recommended using durable replicated persistent volumes in Kubernetes.

Deduplication #

Cluster version of VictoriaMetrics supports data deduplication in the same way as single-node version do. See these docs for details. The only difference is that deduplication can’t be guaranteed when samples and sample duplicates for the same time series end up on different vmstorage nodes. This could happen in the following scenarios:

  • when adding/removing vmstorage nodes a new samples for time series will be re-routed to another vmstorage nodes;
  • when vmstorage nodes are temporarily unavailable (for instance, during their restart). Then new samples are re-routed to the remaining available vmstorage nodes;
  • when vmstorage node has no enough capacity for processing incoming data stream. Then vminsert re-routes new samples to other vmstorage nodes.

It is recommended to set the same -dedup.minScrapeInterval command-line flag value to both vmselect and vmstorage nodes to ensure query results consistency, even if storage layer didn’t complete deduplication yet.

Backups #

It is recommended performing periodical backups from instant snapshots for protecting from user errors such as accidental data deletion.

The following steps must be performed for each vmstorage node for creating a backup:

  1. Create an instant snapshot by navigating to /snapshot/create HTTP handler. It will create snapshot and return its name.
  2. Archive the created snapshot from <-storageDataPath>/snapshots/<snapshot_name> folder using vmbackup. The archival process doesn’t interfere with vmstorage work, so it may be performed at any suitable time.
  3. Delete unused snapshots via /snapshot/delete?snapshot=<snapshot_name> or /snapshot/delete_all in order to free up occupied storage space.

There is no need in synchronizing backups among all the vmstorage nodes.

Restoring from backup:

  1. Stop vmstorage node with kill -INT.
  2. Restore data from backup using vmrestore into -storageDataPath directory.
  3. Start vmstorage node.

Retention filters #

VictoriaMetrics enterprise supports configuring multiple retentions for distinct sets of time series by passing -retentionFilter command-line flag to vmstorage nodes. See these docs for details on this feature.

Additionally, enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics cluster supports multiple retentions for distinct sets of tenants by specifying filters on vm_account_id and/or vm_project_id pseudo-labels in -retentionFilter command-line flag. If the tenant doesn’t match specified -retentionFilter options, then the global -retentionPeriod is used for it.

For example, the following config sets retention to 1 day for tenants with accountID starting from 42, then sets retention to 3 days for time series with label env="dev" or env="prod" from any tenant, while the rest of tenants will have 4 weeks retention:

-retentionFilter='{vm_account_id=~"42.*"}:1d' -retentionFilter='{env=~"dev|staging"}:3d' -retentionPeriod=4w

It is OK to mix filters on real labels with filters on vm_account_id and vm_project_id pseudo-labels. For example, the following config sets retention to 5 days for time series with env="dev" label from tenant accountID=5:

-retentionFilter='{vm_account_id="5",env="dev"}:5d'

See also these docs for additional details on retention filters. See also downsampling.

Enterprise binaries can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page. See how to request a free trial license here.

Downsampling #

Downsampling is available in enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics. It is configured with -downsampling.period command-line flag according to these docs.

It is possible to downsample series, which belong to a particular tenant by using filters on vm_account_id or vm_project_id pseudo-labels in -downsampling.period command-line flag. For example, the following config leaves the last sample per each minute for samples older than one hour only for tenants with accountID equal to 12 and 42, while series for other tenants are dropped:

-downsampling.period='{vm_account_id=~"12|42"}:1h:1m'

It is OK to mix filters on real labels with filters on vm_account_id and vm_project_id pseudo-labels. For example, the following config instructs leaving the last sample per hour after 30 days for time series with env="dev" label from tenant accountID=5:

-downsampling.period='{vm_account_id="5",env="dev"}:30d:1h'

The same flag value must be passed to both vmstorage and vmselect nodes. Configuring vmselect node with -downsampling.period command-line flag makes query results more consistent, because vmselect uses the maximum configured downsampling interval on the requested time range if this time range covers multiple downsampling levels. For example, if -downsampling.period=30d:5m and the query requests the last 60 days of data, then vmselect downsamples all the raw samples on the requested time range using 5 minute interval. If -downsampling.period command-line flag isn’t set at vmselect, then query results can be less consistent because of mixing raw and downsampled data.

See also retention filters.

Enterprise binaries can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page. See how to request a free trial license here.

Profiling #

All the cluster components provide the following handlers for profiling:

  • http://vminsert:8480/debug/pprof/heap for memory profile and http://vminsert:8480/debug/pprof/profile for CPU profile
  • http://vmselect:8481/debug/pprof/heap for memory profile and http://vmselect:8481/debug/pprof/profile for CPU profile
  • http://vmstorage:8482/debug/pprof/heap for memory profile and http://vmstorage:8482/debug/pprof/profile for CPU profile

Example command for collecting cpu profile from vmstorage (replace 0.0.0.0 with vmstorage hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8482/debug/pprof/profile > cpu.pprof

Example command for collecting memory profile from vminsert (replace 0.0.0.0 with vminsert hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8480/debug/pprof/heap > mem.pprof

It is safe sharing the collected profiles from security point of view, since they do not contain sensitive information.

vmalert #

vmselect is capable of proxying requests to vmalert when -vmalert.proxyURL flag is set. Use this feature for the following cases:

  • for proxying requests from Grafana Alerting UI;
  • for accessing vmalert UI through vmselect Web interface.

For accessing vmalerts UI through vmselect configure -vmalert.proxyURL flag and visit http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/prometheus/vmalert/ link.

Community and contributions #

Feel free asking any questions regarding VictoriaMetrics:

If you like VictoriaMetrics and want contributing, then please read these docs.

Reporting bugs #

Report bugs and propose new features here.

List of command-line flags #

List of command-line flags for vminsert #

Below is the output for /path/to/vminsert -help:

  -blockcache.missesBeforeCaching int
     The number of cache misses before putting the block into cache. Higher values may reduce indexdb/dataBlocks cache size at the cost of higher CPU and disk read usage (default 2)
  -cacheExpireDuration duration
     Items are removed from in-memory caches after they aren't accessed for this duration. Lower values may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -prevCacheRemovalPercent (default 30m0s)
  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS for connections to -storageNode. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCAFile string
     Path to TLS CA file to use for verifying certificates provided by -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. By default system CA is used. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCertFile string
     Path to client-side TLS certificate file to use when connecting to -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsInsecureSkipVerify
     Whether to skip verification of TLS certificates provided by -storageNode nodes if -cluster.tls flag is set. Note that disabled TLS certificate verification breaks security. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsKeyFile string
     Path to client-side TLS key file to use when connecting to -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.vminsertConnsShutdownDuration duration
     The time needed for gradual closing of upstream vminsert connections during graceful shutdown. Bigger duration reduces spikes in CPU, RAM and disk IO load on the remaining lower-level clusters during rolling restart. Smaller duration reduces the time needed to close all the upstream vminsert connections, thus reducing the time for graceful shutdown. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#improving-re-routing-performance-during-restart (default 25s)
  -clusternativeListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for data from other vminsert nodes in multi-level cluster setup. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#multi-level-cluster-setup . Usually :8400 should be set to match default vmstorage port for vminsert. Disabled work if empty
  -csvTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps when importing csv data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -datadog.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single DataDog POST request to /datadog/api/v2/series
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 67108864)
  -datadog.sanitizeMetricName
     Sanitize metric names for the ingested DataDog data to comply with DataDog behaviour described at https://docs.datadoghq.com/metrics/custom_metrics/#naming-custom-metrics (default true)
  -denyQueryTracing
     Whether to disable the ability to trace queries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#query-tracing
  -disableRerouting
     Whether to disable re-routing when some of vmstorage nodes accept incoming data at slower speed compared to other storage nodes. Disabled re-routing limits the ingestion rate by the slowest vmstorage node. On the other side, disabled re-routing minimizes the number of active time series in the cluster during rolling restarts and during spikes in series churn rate. See also -disableReroutingOnUnavailable and -dropSamplesOnOverload (default true)
  -disableReroutingOnUnavailable
     Whether to disable re-routing when some of vmstorage nodes are unavailable. Disabled re-routing stops ingestion when some storage nodes are unavailable. On the other side, disabled re-routing minimizes the number of active time series in the cluster during rolling restarts and during spikes in series churn rate. See also -disableRerouting
  -dropSamplesOnOverload
     Whether to drop incoming samples if the destination vmstorage node is overloaded and/or unavailable. This prioritizes cluster availability over consistency, e.g. the cluster continues accepting all the ingested samples, but some of them may be dropped if vmstorage nodes are temporarily unavailable and/or overloaded. The drop of samples happens before the replication, so it's not recommended to use this flag with -replicationFactor enabled.
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default, only IPv4 TCP and UDP are used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables in addition to the command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from the command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
  -envflag.prefix string
     Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
  -eula
     Deprecated, please use -license or -licenseFile flags instead. By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the ESA https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -filestream.disableFadvise
     Whether to disable fadvise() syscall when reading large data files. The fadvise() syscall prevents from eviction of recently accessed data from OS page cache during background merges and backups. In some rare cases it is better to disable the syscall if it uses too much CPU
  -flagsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -flagsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -flagsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -flagsAuthKey=http://host/path or -flagsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -fs.disableMmap
     Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default, mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
  -graphite.sanitizeMetricName
     Sanitize metric names for the ingested Graphite data. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-send-data-from-graphite-compatible-agents-such-as-statsd
  -graphiteListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for Graphite plaintext data. Usually :2003 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. See also -graphiteListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -graphiteListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -graphiteListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -graphiteTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for Graphite data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
  -http.connTimeout duration
     Incoming connections to -httpListenAddr are closed after the configured timeout. This may help evenly spreading load among a cluster of services behind TCP-level load balancer. Zero value disables closing of incoming connections (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default, compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -http.header.csp string
     Value for 'Content-Security-Policy' header, recommended: "default-src 'self'"
  -http.header.frameOptions string
     Value for 'X-Frame-Options' header
  -http.header.hsts string
     Value for 'Strict-Transport-Security' header, recommended: 'max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains'
  -http.idleConnTimeout duration
     Timeout for incoming idle http connections (default 1m0s)
  -http.maxGracefulShutdownDuration duration
     The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
  -http.pathPrefix string
     An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
  -http.shutdownDelay duration
     Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
  -httpAuth.password value
     Password for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -httpAuth.password=file:///abs/path/to/file or -httpAuth.password=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -httpAuth.password=http://host/path or -httpAuth.password=https://host/path
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr array
     Address to listen for incoming http requests. See also -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol array
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at the given -httpListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt . With enabled proxy protocol http server cannot serve regular /metrics endpoint. Use -pushmetrics.url for metrics pushing
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -import.maxLineLen size
     The maximum length in bytes of a single line accepted by /api/v1/import; the line length can be limited with 'max_rows_per_line' query arg passed to /api/v1/export
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 10485760)
  -influx.databaseNames array
     Comma-separated list of database names to return from /query and /influx/query API. This can be needed for accepting data from Telegraf plugins such as https://github.com/fangli/fluent-plugin-influxdb
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -influx.maxLineSize size
     The maximum size in bytes for a single InfluxDB line during parsing. Applicable for stream mode only. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-send-data-from-influxdb-compatible-agents-such-as-telegraf
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 262144)
  -influx.maxRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single InfluxDB request. Applicable for batch mode only. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-send-data-from-influxdb-compatible-agents-such-as-telegraf
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 67108864)
  -influxDBLabel string
     Default label for the DB name sent over '?db={db_name}' query parameter (default "db")
  -influxListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for InfluxDB line protocol data. Usually :8089 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. This flag isn't needed when ingesting data over HTTP - just send it to http://<victoriametrics>:8428/write . See also -influxListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -influxListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -influxListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -influxMeasurementFieldSeparator string
     Separator for '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' metric name when inserted via InfluxDB line protocol (default "_")
  -influxSkipMeasurement
     Uses '{field_name}' as a metric name while ignoring '{measurement}' and '-influxMeasurementFieldSeparator'
  -influxSkipSingleField
     Uses '{measurement}' instead of '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' for metric name if InfluxDB line contains only a single field
  -influxTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for InfluxDB line protocol data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -insert.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum duration to wait in the queue when -maxConcurrentInserts concurrent insert requests are executed (default 1m0s)
  -internStringCacheExpireDuration duration
     The expiry duration for caches for interned strings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringMaxLen and -internStringDisableCache (default 6m0s)
  -internStringDisableCache
     Whether to disable caches for interned strings. This may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringCacheExpireDuration and -internStringMaxLen
  -internStringMaxLen int
     The maximum length for strings to intern. A lower limit may save memory at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringDisableCache and -internStringCacheExpireDuration (default 500)
  -license string
     License key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed via file specified by -licenseFile command-line flag
  -license.forceOffline
     Whether to enable offline verification for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise license key, which has been passed either via -license or via -licenseFile command-line flag. The issued license key must support offline verification feature. Contact info@victoriametrics.com if you need offline license verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries
  -licenseFile string
     Path to file with license key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed inline via -license command-line flag
  -loggerDisableTimestamps
     Whether to disable writing timestamps in logs
  -loggerErrorsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -loggerFormat string
     Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
  -loggerJSONFields string
     Allows renaming fields in JSON formatted logs. Example: "ts:timestamp,msg:message" renames "ts" to "timestamp" and "msg" to "message". Supported fields: ts, level, caller, msg
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -loggerMaxArgLen int
     The maximum length of a single logged argument. Longer arguments are replaced with 'arg_start..arg_end', where 'arg_start' and 'arg_end' is prefix and suffix of the arg with the length not exceeding -loggerMaxArgLen / 2 (default 1000)
  -loggerOutput string
     Output for the logs. Supported values: stderr, stdout (default "stderr")
  -loggerTimezone string
     Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
  -loggerWarnsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -maxConcurrentInserts int
     The maximum number of concurrent insert requests. Set higher value when clients send data over slow networks. Default value depends on the number of available CPU cores. It should work fine in most cases since it minimizes resource usage. See also -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 32)
  -maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single Prometheus remote_write API request
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 33554432)
  -maxLabelValueLen int
     The maximum length of label values in the accepted time series. Longer label values are truncated. In this case the vm_too_long_label_values_total metric at /metrics page is incremented (default 4096)
  -maxLabelsPerTimeseries int
     The maximum number of labels accepted per time series. Superfluous labels are dropped. In this case the vm_metrics_with_dropped_labels_total metric at /metrics page is incremented (default 30)
  -memory.allowedBytes size
     Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -memory.allowedPercent float
     Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metrics.exposeMetadata
     Whether to expose TYPE and HELP metadata at the /metrics page, which is exposed at -httpListenAddr . The metadata may be needed when the /metrics page is consumed by systems, which require this information. For example, Managed Prometheus in Google Cloud - https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/docs/managed-prometheus/troubleshooting#missing-metric-type
  -metricsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -metricsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -metricsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -metricsAuthKey=http://host/path or -metricsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -mtls array
     Whether to require valid client certificate for https requests to the corresponding -httpListenAddr . This flag works only if -tls flag is set. See also -mtlsCAFile . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -mtlsCAFile array
     Optional path to TLS Root CA for verifying client certificates at the corresponding -httpListenAddr when -mtls is enabled. By default the host system TLS Root CA is used for client certificate verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -newrelic.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single NewRelic request to /newrelic/infra/v2/metrics/events/bulk
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 67108864)
  -opentelemetry.usePrometheusNaming
     Whether to convert metric names and labels into Prometheus-compatible format for the metrics ingested via OpenTelemetry protocol; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#sending-data-via-opentelemetry
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for OpenTSDB HTTP put requests. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. See also -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -opentsdbListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for OpenTSDB metrics. Telnet put messages and HTTP /api/put messages are simultaneously served on TCP port. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. See also -opentsdbListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -opentsdbListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -opentsdbListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -opentsdbTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB 'telnet put' data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
  -opentsdbhttp.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size of OpenTSDB HTTP put request
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 33554432)
  -opentsdbhttpTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB HTTP data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -pprofAuthKey value
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -pprofAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -pprofAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -pprofAuthKey=http://host/path or -pprofAuthKey=https://host/path
  -prevCacheRemovalPercent float
     Items in the previous caches are removed when the percent of requests it serves becomes lower than this value. Higher values reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -cacheExpireDuration (default 0.1)
  -pushmetrics.disableCompression
     Whether to disable request body compression when pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url
  -pushmetrics.extraLabel array
     Optional labels to add to metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.extraLabel='instance="foo"' adds instance="foo" label to all the metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.header array
     Optional HTTP request header to send to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.header='Authorization: Basic foobar' adds 'Authorization: Basic foobar' header to every request to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.interval duration
     Interval for pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url (default 10s)
  -pushmetrics.url array
     Optional URL to push metrics exposed at /metrics page. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#push-metrics . By default, metrics exposed at /metrics page aren't pushed to any remote storage
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -relabelConfig string
     Optional path to a file with relabeling rules, which are applied to all the ingested metrics. The path can point either to local file or to http url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#relabeling for details. The config is reloaded on SIGHUP signal
  -relabelConfigCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in '-relabelConfig' file. By default the checking is disabled. Send SIGHUP signal in order to force config check for changes
  -replicationFactor int
     Replication factor for the ingested data, i.e. how many copies to make among distinct -storageNode instances. Note that vmselect must run with -dedup.minScrapeInterval=1ms for data de-duplication when replicationFactor is greater than 1. Higher values for -dedup.minScrapeInterval at vmselect is OK (default 1)
  -rpc.disableCompression
     Whether to disable compression for the data sent from vminsert to vmstorage. This reduces CPU usage at the cost of higher network bandwidth usage
  -sortLabels
     Whether to sort labels for incoming samples before writing them to storage. This may be needed for reducing memory usage at storage when the order of labels in incoming samples is random. For example, if m{k1="v1",k2="v2"} may be sent as m{k2="v2",k1="v1"}. Enabled sorting for labels can slow down ingestion performance a bit
  -storageNode array
     Comma-separated addresses of vmstorage nodes; usage: -storageNode=vmstorage-host1,...,vmstorage-hostN . Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics supports automatic discovery of vmstorage addresses via DNS SRV records. For example, -storageNode=srv+vmstorage.addrs . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -storageNode.discoveryInterval duration
     Interval for refreshing -storageNode list behind DNS SRV records. The minimum supported interval is 1s. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/ (default 2s)
  -storageNode.filter string
     An optional regexp filter for discovered -storageNode addresses according to https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery. Discovered addresses matching the filter are retained, while other addresses are ignored. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tls array
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at the given -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set. See also -mtls
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -tlsAutocertCacheDir string
     Directory to store TLS certificates issued via Let's Encrypt. Certificates are lost on restarts if this flag isn't set. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertEmail string
     Contact email for the issued Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. See also -tlsAutocertHosts and -tlsAutocertCacheDir .This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertHosts array
     Optional hostnames for automatic issuing of Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. These hostnames must be reachable at -httpListenAddr . The -httpListenAddr must listen tcp port 443 . The -tlsAutocertHosts overrides -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile . See also -tlsAutocertEmail and -tlsAutocertCacheDir . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCertFile array
     Path to file with TLS certificate for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower. The provided certificate file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsKeyFile array
     Path to file with TLS key for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsMinVersion array
     Optional minimum TLS version to use for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Supported values: TLS10, TLS11, TLS12, TLS13
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -usePromCompatibleNaming
     Whether to replace characters unsupported by Prometheus with underscores in the ingested metric names and label names. For example, foo.bar{a.b='c'} is transformed into foo_bar{a_b='c'} during data ingestion if this flag is set. See https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/data_model/#metric-names-and-labels
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version
  -vmstorageDialTimeout duration
     Timeout for establishing RPC connections from vminsert to vmstorage. See also -vmstorageUserTimeout (default 3s)
  -vmstorageUserTimeout duration
     Network timeout for RPC connections from vminsert to vmstorage (Linux only). Lower values speed up re-rerouting recovery when some of vmstorage nodes become unavailable because of networking issues. Read more about TCP_USER_TIMEOUT at https://blog.cloudflare.com/when-tcp-sockets-refuse-to-die/ . See also -vmstorageDialTimeout (default 3s)

List of command-line flags for vmselect #

Below is the output for /path/to/vmselect -help:

  -blockcache.missesBeforeCaching int
     The number of cache misses before putting the block into cache. Higher values may reduce indexdb/dataBlocks cache size at the cost of higher CPU and disk read usage (default 2)
  -cacheDataPath string
     Path to directory for cache files and temporary query results. By default, the cache won't be persisted, and temporary query results will be placed under /tmp/searchResults. If set, the cache will be persisted under cacheDataPath/rollupResult, and temporary query results will be placed under cacheDataPath/tmp/searchResults.
  -cacheExpireDuration duration
     Items are removed from in-memory caches after they aren't accessed for this duration. Lower values may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -prevCacheRemovalPercent (default 30m0s)
  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS for connections to -storageNode. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCAFile string
     Path to TLS CA file to use for verifying certificates provided by -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. By default system CA is used. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCertFile string
     Path to client-side TLS certificate file to use when connecting to -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsInsecureSkipVerify
     Whether to skip verification of TLS certificates provided by -storageNode nodes if -cluster.tls flag is set. Note that disabled TLS certificate verification breaks security. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsKeyFile string
     Path to client-side TLS key file to use when connecting to -storageNode if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.disableCompression
     Whether to disable compression of the data sent to vmselect via -clusternativeListenAddr. This reduces CPU usage at the cost of higher network bandwidth usage
  -clusternative.maxConcurrentRequests int
     The maximum number of concurrent vmselect requests the server can process at -clusternativeListenAddr. It shouldn't be high, since a single request usually saturates a CPU core at the underlying vmstorage nodes, and many concurrently executed requests may require high amounts of memory. See also -clusternative.maxQueueDuration (default 32)
  -clusternative.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum time the incoming query to -clusternativeListenAddr waits for execution when -clusternative.maxConcurrentRequests limit is reached (default 10s)
  -clusternative.maxTagKeys int
     The maximum number of tag keys returned per search at -clusternativeListenAddr (default 100000)
  -clusternative.maxTagValueSuffixesPerSearch int
     The maximum number of tag value suffixes returned from /metrics/find at -clusternativeListenAddr (default 100000)
  -clusternative.maxTagValues int
     The maximum number of tag values returned per search at -clusternativeListenAddr (default 100000)
  -clusternative.tls
     Whether to use TLS when accepting connections at -clusternativeListenAddr. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.tlsCAFile string
     Path to TLS CA file to use for verifying certificates provided by vmselect, which connects at -clusternativeListenAddr if -clusternative.tls flag is set. By default system CA is used. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.tlsCertFile string
     Path to server-side TLS certificate file to use when accepting connections at -clusternativeListenAddr if -clusternative.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites used for connections at -clusternativeListenAddr if -clusternative.tls flag is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -clusternative.tlsInsecureSkipVerify
     Whether to skip verification of TLS certificates provided by vmselect, which connects to -clusternativeListenAddr if -clusternative.tls flag is set. Note that disabled TLS certificate verification breaks security. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternative.tlsKeyFile string
     Path to server-side TLS key file to use when accepting connections at -clusternativeListenAddr if -clusternative.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -clusternativeListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for requests from other vmselect nodes in multi-level cluster setup. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#multi-level-cluster-setup . Usually :8401 should be set to match default vmstorage port for vmselect. Disabled work if empty
  -dedup.minScrapeInterval duration
     Leave only the last sample in every time series per each discrete interval equal to -dedup.minScrapeInterval > 0. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#deduplication for details
  -deleteAuthKey value
     authKey for metrics' deletion via /prometheus/api/v1/admin/tsdb/delete_series and /graphite/tags/delSeries
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -deleteAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -deleteAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -deleteAuthKey=http://host/path or -deleteAuthKey=https://host/path
  -denyQueryTracing
     Whether to disable the ability to trace queries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#query-tracing
  -downsampling.period array
     Comma-separated downsampling periods in the format 'offset:period'. For example, '30d:10m' instructs to leave a single sample per 10 minutes for samples older than 30 days. When setting multiple downsampling periods, it is necessary for the periods to be multiples of each other. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#downsampling for details. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default, only IPv4 TCP and UDP are used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables in addition to the command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from the command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
  -envflag.prefix string
     Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
  -eula
     Deprecated, please use -license or -licenseFile flags instead. By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the ESA https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -filestream.disableFadvise
     Whether to disable fadvise() syscall when reading large data files. The fadvise() syscall prevents from eviction of recently accessed data from OS page cache during background merges and backups. In some rare cases it is better to disable the syscall if it uses too much CPU
  -flagsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -flagsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -flagsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -flagsAuthKey=http://host/path or -flagsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -fs.disableMmap
     Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default, mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
  -globalReplicationFactor int
     How many copies of every ingested sample is available across vmstorage groups. vmselect continues returning full responses when up to globalReplicationFactor-1 vmstorage groups are temporarily unavailable. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#vmstorage-groups-at-vmselect . See also -replicationFactor (default 1)
  -http.connTimeout duration
     Incoming connections to -httpListenAddr are closed after the configured timeout. This may help evenly spreading load among a cluster of services behind TCP-level load balancer. Zero value disables closing of incoming connections (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default, compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -http.header.csp string
     Value for 'Content-Security-Policy' header, recommended: "default-src 'self'"
  -http.header.frameOptions string
     Value for 'X-Frame-Options' header
  -http.header.hsts string
     Value for 'Strict-Transport-Security' header, recommended: 'max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains'
  -http.idleConnTimeout duration
     Timeout for incoming idle http connections (default 1m0s)
  -http.maxGracefulShutdownDuration duration
     The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
  -http.pathPrefix string
     An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
  -http.shutdownDelay duration
     Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
  -httpAuth.password value
     Password for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -httpAuth.password=file:///abs/path/to/file or -httpAuth.password=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -httpAuth.password=http://host/path or -httpAuth.password=https://host/path
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr array
     Address to listen for incoming http requests. See also -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol array
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at the given -httpListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt . With enabled proxy protocol http server cannot serve regular /metrics endpoint. Use -pushmetrics.url for metrics pushing
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -internStringCacheExpireDuration duration
     The expiry duration for caches for interned strings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringMaxLen and -internStringDisableCache (default 6m0s)
  -internStringDisableCache
     Whether to disable caches for interned strings. This may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringCacheExpireDuration and -internStringMaxLen
  -internStringMaxLen int
     The maximum length for strings to intern. A lower limit may save memory at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringDisableCache and -internStringCacheExpireDuration (default 500)
  -license string
     License key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed via file specified by -licenseFile command-line flag
  -license.forceOffline
     Whether to enable offline verification for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise license key, which has been passed either via -license or via -licenseFile command-line flag. The issued license key must support offline verification feature. Contact info@victoriametrics.com if you need offline license verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries
  -licenseFile string
     Path to file with license key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed inline via -license command-line flag
  -loggerDisableTimestamps
     Whether to disable writing timestamps in logs
  -loggerErrorsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -loggerFormat string
     Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
  -loggerJSONFields string
     Allows renaming fields in JSON formatted logs. Example: "ts:timestamp,msg:message" renames "ts" to "timestamp" and "msg" to "message". Supported fields: ts, level, caller, msg
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -loggerMaxArgLen int
     The maximum length of a single logged argument. Longer arguments are replaced with 'arg_start..arg_end', where 'arg_start' and 'arg_end' is prefix and suffix of the arg with the length not exceeding -loggerMaxArgLen / 2 (default 1000)
  -loggerOutput string
     Output for the logs. Supported values: stderr, stdout (default "stderr")
  -loggerTimezone string
     Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
  -loggerWarnsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -memory.allowedBytes size
     Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -memory.allowedPercent float
     Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metrics.exposeMetadata
     Whether to expose TYPE and HELP metadata at the /metrics page, which is exposed at -httpListenAddr . The metadata may be needed when the /metrics page is consumed by systems, which require this information. For example, Managed Prometheus in Google Cloud - https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/docs/managed-prometheus/troubleshooting#missing-metric-type
  -metricsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -metricsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -metricsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -metricsAuthKey=http://host/path or -metricsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -mtls array
     Whether to require valid client certificate for https requests to the corresponding -httpListenAddr . This flag works only if -tls flag is set. See also -mtlsCAFile . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -mtlsCAFile array
     Optional path to TLS Root CA for verifying client certificates at the corresponding -httpListenAddr when -mtls is enabled. By default the host system TLS Root CA is used for client certificate verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pprofAuthKey value
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -pprofAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -pprofAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -pprofAuthKey=http://host/path or -pprofAuthKey=https://host/path
  -prevCacheRemovalPercent float
     Items in the previous caches are removed when the percent of requests it serves becomes lower than this value. Higher values reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -cacheExpireDuration (default 0.1)
  -pushmetrics.disableCompression
     Whether to disable request body compression when pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url
  -pushmetrics.extraLabel array
     Optional labels to add to metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.extraLabel='instance="foo"' adds instance="foo" label to all the metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.header array
     Optional HTTP request header to send to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.header='Authorization: Basic foobar' adds 'Authorization: Basic foobar' header to every request to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.interval duration
     Interval for pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url (default 10s)
  -pushmetrics.url array
     Optional URL to push metrics exposed at /metrics page. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#push-metrics . By default, metrics exposed at /metrics page aren't pushed to any remote storage
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -replicationFactor array
     How many copies of every ingested sample is available across -storageNode nodes. vmselect continues returning full responses when up to replicationFactor-1 vmstorage nodes are temporarily unavailable. See also -globalReplicationFactor and -search.skipSlowReplicas (default 1)
     Supports an array of `key:value` entries separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -search.cacheTimestampOffset duration
     The maximum duration since the current time for response data, which is always queried from the original raw data, without using the response cache. Increase this value if you see gaps in responses due to time synchronization issues between VictoriaMetrics and data sources (default 5m0s)
  -search.denyPartialResponse
     Whether to deny partial responses if a part of -storageNode instances fail to perform queries; this trades availability over consistency; see also -search.maxQueryDuration
  -search.disableCache
     Whether to disable response caching. This may be useful when ingesting historical data. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#backfilling . See also -search.resetRollupResultCacheOnStartup
  -search.disableImplicitConversion
     Whether to return an error for queries that rely on implicit subquery conversions, see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/metricsql/#subqueries for details. See also -search.logImplicitConversion
  -search.graphiteMaxPointsPerSeries int
     The maximum number of points per series Graphite render API can return (default 1000000)
  -search.graphiteStorageStep duration
     The interval between datapoints stored in the database. It is used at Graphite Render API handler for normalizing the interval between datapoints in case it isn't normalized. It can be overridden by sending 'storage_step' query arg to /render API or by sending the desired interval via 'Storage-Step' http header during querying /render API (default 10s)
  -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI
     Whether to ignore match[], extra_filters[] and extra_label query args at /api/v1/labels and /api/v1/label/.../values . This may be useful for decreasing load on VictoriaMetrics when extra filters match too many time series. The downside is that superfluous labels or series could be returned, which do not match the extra filters. See also -search.maxLabelsAPISeries and -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration
  -search.latencyOffset duration
     The time when data points become visible in query results after the collection. It can be overridden on per-query basis via latency_offset arg. Too small value can result in incomplete last points for query results (default 30s)
  -search.logImplicitConversion
     Whether to log queries with implicit subquery conversions, see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/metricsql/#subqueries for details. Such conversion can be disabled using -search.disableImplicitConversion
  -search.logQueryMemoryUsage size
     Log query and increment vm_memory_intensive_queries_total metric each time the query requires more memory than specified by this flag. This may help detecting and optimizing heavy queries. Query logging is disabled by default. See also -search.logSlowQueryDuration and -search.maxMemoryPerQuery
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -search.logSlowQueryDuration duration
     Log queries with execution time exceeding this value. Zero disables slow query logging. See also -search.logQueryMemoryUsage (default 5s)
  -search.maxConcurrentRequests int
     The maximum number of concurrent search requests. It shouldn't be high, since a single request can saturate all the CPU cores, while many concurrently executed requests may require high amounts of memory. See also -search.maxQueueDuration and -search.maxMemoryPerQuery (default 16)
  -search.maxDeleteSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be deleted using /api/v1/admin/tsdb/delete_series. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 1000000)
  -search.maxExportDuration duration
     The maximum duration for /api/v1/export call (default 720h0m0s)
  -search.maxExportSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be returned from /api/v1/export* APIs. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 10000000)
  -search.maxFederateSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be returned from /federate. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 1000000)
  -search.maxGraphiteSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be scanned during queries to Graphite Render API. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#graphite-render-api-usage (default 300000)
  -search.maxGraphiteTagKeys int
     The maximum number of tag keys returned from Graphite API, which returns tags. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#graphite-tags-api-usage (default 100000)
  -search.maxGraphiteTagValues int
     The maximum number of tag values returned from Graphite API, which returns tag values. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#graphite-tags-api-usage (default 100000)
  -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration duration
     The maximum duration for /api/v1/labels, /api/v1/label/.../values and /api/v1/series requests. See also -search.maxLabelsAPISeries and -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI (default 5s)
  -search.maxLabelsAPISeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which could be scanned when searching for the matching time series at /api/v1/labels and /api/v1/label/.../values. This option allows limiting memory usage and CPU usage. See also -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration, -search.maxTagKeys, -search.maxTagValues and -search.ignoreExtraFiltersAtLabelsAPI (default 1000000)
  -search.maxLookback duration
     Synonym to -search.lookback-delta from Prometheus. The value is dynamically detected from interval between time series datapoints if not set. It can be overridden on per-query basis via max_lookback arg. See also '-search.maxStalenessInterval' flag, which has the same meaning due to historical reasons
  -search.maxMemoryPerQuery size
     The maximum amounts of memory a single query may consume. Queries requiring more memory are rejected. The total memory limit for concurrently executed queries can be estimated as -search.maxMemoryPerQuery multiplied by -search.maxConcurrentRequests . See also -search.logQueryMemoryUsage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -search.maxPointsPerTimeseries int
     The maximum points per a single timeseries returned from /api/v1/query_range. This option doesn't limit the number of scanned raw samples in the database. The main purpose of this option is to limit the number of per-series points returned to graphing UI such as VMUI or Grafana. There is no sense in setting this limit to values bigger than the horizontal resolution of the graph. See also -search.maxResponseSeries (default 30000)
  -search.maxPointsSubqueryPerTimeseries int
     The maximum number of points per series, which can be generated by subquery. See https://valyala.medium.com/prometheus-subqueries-in-victoriametrics-9b1492b720b3 (default 100000)
  -search.maxQueryDuration duration
     The maximum duration for query execution. It can be overridden to a smaller value on a per-query basis via 'timeout' query arg (default 30s)
  -search.maxQueryLen size
     The maximum search query length in bytes
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 16384)
  -search.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum time the request waits for execution when -search.maxConcurrentRequests limit is reached; see also -search.maxQueryDuration (default 10s)
  -search.maxResponseSeries int
     The maximum number of time series which can be returned from /api/v1/query and /api/v1/query_range . The limit is disabled if it equals to 0. See also -search.maxPointsPerTimeseries and -search.maxUniqueTimeseries
  -search.maxSamplesPerQuery int
     The maximum number of raw samples a single query can process across all time series. This protects from heavy queries, which select unexpectedly high number of raw samples. See also -search.maxSamplesPerSeries (default 1000000000)
  -search.maxSamplesPerSeries int
     The maximum number of raw samples a single query can scan per each time series. See also -search.maxSamplesPerQuery (default 30000000)
  -search.maxSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be returned from /api/v1/series. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 30000)
  -search.maxSeriesPerAggrFunc int
     The maximum number of time series an aggregate MetricsQL function can generate (default 1000000)
  -search.maxStalenessInterval duration
     The maximum interval for staleness calculations. By default, it is automatically calculated from the median interval between samples. This flag could be useful for tuning Prometheus data model closer to Influx-style data model. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/#staleness for details. See also '-search.setLookbackToStep' flag
  -search.maxStatusRequestDuration duration
     The maximum duration for /api/v1/status/* requests (default 5m0s)
  -search.maxStepForPointsAdjustment duration
     The maximum step when /api/v1/query_range handler adjusts points with timestamps closer than -search.latencyOffset to the current time. The adjustment is needed because such points may contain incomplete data (default 1m0s)
  -search.maxTSDBStatusSeries int
     The maximum number of time series, which can be processed during the call to /api/v1/status/tsdb. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 10000000)
  -search.maxTagValueSuffixesPerSearch int
     The maximum number of tag value suffixes returned from /metrics/find (default 100000)
  -search.maxUniqueTimeseries int
     The maximum number of unique time series, which can be selected during /api/v1/query and /api/v1/query_range queries. This option allows limiting memory usage. The limit can't exceed the corresponding -search.maxUniqueTimeseries limit on vmstorage, it can be only set to lower values. (default 0)
  -search.maxWorkersPerQuery int
     The maximum number of CPU cores a single query can use. The default value should work good for most cases. The flag can be set to lower values for improving performance of big number of concurrently executed queries. The flag can be set to bigger values for improving performance of heavy queries, which scan big number of time series (>10K) and/or big number of samples (>100M). There is no sense in setting this flag to values bigger than the number of CPU cores available on the system (default 16)
  -search.minStalenessInterval duration
     The minimum interval for staleness calculations. This flag could be useful for removing gaps on graphs generated from time series with irregular intervals between samples. See also '-search.maxStalenessInterval'
  -search.minWindowForInstantRollupOptimization value
     Enable cache-based optimization for repeated queries to /api/v1/query (aka instant queries), which contain rollup functions with lookbehind window exceeding the given value
     The following optional suffixes are supported: s (second), h (hour), d (day), w (week), y (year). If suffix isn't set, then the duration is counted in months (default 3h)
  -search.noStaleMarkers
     Set this flag to true if the database doesn't contain Prometheus stale markers, so there is no need in spending additional CPU time on its handling. Staleness markers may exist only in data obtained from Prometheus scrape targets
  -search.queryStats.lastQueriesCount int
     Query stats for /api/v1/status/top_queries is tracked on this number of last queries. Zero value disables query stats tracking (default 20000)
  -search.queryStats.minQueryDuration duration
     The minimum duration for queries to track in query stats at /api/v1/status/top_queries. Queries with lower duration are ignored in query stats (default 1ms)
  -search.resetCacheAuthKey value
     Optional authKey for resetting rollup cache via /internal/resetRollupResultCache call
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -search.resetCacheAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -search.resetCacheAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -search.resetCacheAuthKey=http://host/path or -search.resetCacheAuthKey=https://host/path
  -search.resetRollupResultCacheOnStartup
     Whether to reset rollup result cache on startup. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#rollup-result-cache . See also -search.disableCache
  -search.setLookbackToStep
     Whether to fix lookback interval to 'step' query arg value. If set to true, the query model becomes closer to InfluxDB data model. If set to true, then -search.maxLookback and -search.maxStalenessInterval are ignored
  -search.skipSlowReplicas
     Whether to skip -replicationFactor - 1 slowest vmstorage nodes during querying. Enabling this setting may improve query speed, but it could also lead to incomplete results if some queried data has less than -replicationFactor copies at vmstorage nodes. Consider enabling this setting only if all the queried data contains -replicationFactor copies in the cluster
  -search.inmemoryBufSizeBytes size
     Size for in-memory data blocks used during processing search requests. By default, the size is automatically calculated based on available memory. Adjust this flag value if you observe that vm_tmp_blocks_max_inmemory_file_size_bytes metric constantly shows much higher values than vm_tmp_blocks_inmemory_file_size_bytes. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/6851
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -search.tenantCacheExpireDuration duration
     The expiry duration for list of tenants for multi-tenant queries. (default 5m0s)
  -search.treatDotsAsIsInRegexps
     Whether to treat dots as is in regexp label filters used in queries. For example, foo{bar=~"a.b.c"} will be automatically converted to foo{bar=~"a\\.b\\.c"}, i.e. all the dots in regexp filters will be automatically escaped in order to match only dot char instead of matching any char. Dots in ".+", ".*" and ".{n}" regexps aren't escaped. This option is DEPRECATED in favor of {__graphite__="a.*.c"} syntax for selecting metrics matching the given Graphite metrics filter
  -selectNode array
     Comma-separated addresses of vmselect nodes; usage: -selectNode=vmselect-host1,...,vmselect-hostN
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -storageNode array
     Comma-separated addresses of vmstorage nodes; usage: -storageNode=vmstorage-host1,...,vmstorage-hostN . Enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics supports automatic discovery of vmstorage addresses via DNS SRV records. For example, -storageNode=srv+vmstorage.addrs . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -storageNode.discoveryInterval duration
     Interval for refreshing -storageNode list behind DNS SRV records. The minimum supported interval is 1s. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/ (default 2s)
  -storageNode.filter string
     An optional regexp filter for discovered -storageNode addresses according to https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#automatic-vmstorage-discovery. Discovered addresses matching the filter are retained, while other addresses are ignored. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tls array
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at the given -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set. See also -mtls
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -tlsAutocertCacheDir string
     Directory to store TLS certificates issued via Let's Encrypt. Certificates are lost on restarts if this flag isn't set. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertEmail string
     Contact email for the issued Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. See also -tlsAutocertHosts and -tlsAutocertCacheDir .This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertHosts array
     Optional hostnames for automatic issuing of Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. These hostnames must be reachable at -httpListenAddr . The -httpListenAddr must listen tcp port 443 . The -tlsAutocertHosts overrides -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile . See also -tlsAutocertEmail and -tlsAutocertCacheDir . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCertFile array
     Path to file with TLS certificate for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower. The provided certificate file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsKeyFile array
     Path to file with TLS key for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsMinVersion array
     Optional minimum TLS version to use for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Supported values: TLS10, TLS11, TLS12, TLS13
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version
  -vmalert.proxyURL string
     Optional URL for proxying requests to vmalert. For example, if -vmalert.proxyURL=http://vmalert:8880 , then alerting API requests such as /api/v1/rules from Grafana will be proxied to http://vmalert:8880/api/v1/rules
  -vmstorageDialTimeout duration
     Timeout for establishing RPC connections from vmselect to vmstorage. See also -vmstorageUserTimeout (default 3s)
  -vmstorageUserTimeout duration
     Network timeout for RPC connections from vmselect to vmstorage (Linux only). Lower values reduce the maximum query durations when some vmstorage nodes become unavailable because of networking issues. Read more about TCP_USER_TIMEOUT at https://blog.cloudflare.com/when-tcp-sockets-refuse-to-die/ . See also -vmstorageDialTimeout (default 3s)
  -vmui.customDashboardsPath string
     Optional path to vmui dashboards. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/master/app/vmui/packages/vmui/public/dashboards
  -vmui.defaultTimezone string
     The default timezone to be used in vmui. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local

List of command-line flags for vmstorage #

Below is the output for /path/to/vmstorage -help:

  -bigMergeConcurrency int
     Deprecated: this flag does nothing
  -blockcache.missesBeforeCaching int
     The number of cache misses before putting the block into cache. Higher values may reduce indexdb/dataBlocks cache size at the cost of higher CPU and disk read usage (default 2)
  -cacheExpireDuration duration
     Items are removed from in-memory caches after they aren't accessed for this duration. Lower values may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -prevCacheRemovalPercent (default 30m0s)
  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS when accepting connections from vminsert and vmselect. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCAFile string
     Path to TLS CA file to use for verifying certificates provided by vminsert and vmselect if -cluster.tls flag is set. By default system CA is used. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCertFile string
     Path to server-side TLS certificate file to use when accepting connections from vminsert and vmselect if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites used for connections from vminsert and vmselect if -cluster.tls flag is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -cluster.tlsInsecureSkipVerify
     Whether to skip verification of TLS certificates provided by vminsert and vmselect if -cluster.tls flag is set. Note that disabled TLS certificate verification breaks security. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -cluster.tlsKeyFile string
     Path to server-side TLS key file to use when accepting connections from vminsert and vmselect if -cluster.tls flag is set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#mtls-protection . This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -dedup.minScrapeInterval duration
     Leave only the last sample in every time series per each discrete interval equal to -dedup.minScrapeInterval > 0. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#deduplication for details
  -denyQueriesOutsideRetention
     Whether to deny queries outside of the configured -retentionPeriod. When set, then /api/v1/query_range would return '503 Service Unavailable' error for queries with 'from' value outside -retentionPeriod. This may be useful when multiple data sources with distinct retentions are hidden behind query-tee
  -denyQueryTracing
     Whether to disable the ability to trace queries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#query-tracing
  -downsampling.period array
     Comma-separated downsampling periods in the format 'offset:period'. For example, '30d:10m' instructs to leave a single sample per 10 minutes for samples older than 30 days. When setting multiple downsampling periods, it is necessary for the periods to be multiples of each other. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#downsampling for details. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default, only IPv4 TCP and UDP are used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables in addition to the command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from the command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
  -envflag.prefix string
     Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
  -eula
     Deprecated, please use -license or -licenseFile flags instead. By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the ESA https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -filestream.disableFadvise
     Whether to disable fadvise() syscall when reading large data files. The fadvise() syscall prevents from eviction of recently accessed data from OS page cache during background merges and backups. In some rare cases it is better to disable the syscall if it uses too much CPU
  -finalMergeDelay duration
     Deprecated: this flag does nothing
  -flagsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -flagsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -flagsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -flagsAuthKey=http://host/path or -flagsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -forceFlushAuthKey value
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /internal/force_flush pages
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -forceFlushAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -forceFlushAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -forceFlushAuthKey=http://host/path or -forceFlushAuthKey=https://host/path
  -forceMergeAuthKey value
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /internal/force_merge pages
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -forceMergeAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -forceMergeAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -forceMergeAuthKey=http://host/path or -forceMergeAuthKey=https://host/path
  -fs.disableMmap
     Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default, mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
  -http.connTimeout duration
     Incoming connections to -httpListenAddr are closed after the configured timeout. This may help evenly spreading load among a cluster of services behind TCP-level load balancer. Zero value disables closing of incoming connections (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default, compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -http.header.csp string
     Value for 'Content-Security-Policy' header, recommended: "default-src 'self'"
  -http.header.frameOptions string
     Value for 'X-Frame-Options' header
  -http.header.hsts string
     Value for 'Strict-Transport-Security' header, recommended: 'max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains'
  -http.idleConnTimeout duration
     Timeout for incoming idle http connections (default 1m0s)
  -http.maxGracefulShutdownDuration duration
     The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
  -http.pathPrefix string
     An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
  -http.shutdownDelay duration
     Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
  -httpAuth.password value
     Password for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -httpAuth.password=file:///abs/path/to/file or -httpAuth.password=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -httpAuth.password=http://host/path or -httpAuth.password=https://host/path
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr array
     Address to listen for incoming http requests. See also -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol array
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at the given -httpListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt . With enabled proxy protocol http server cannot serve regular /metrics endpoint. Use -pushmetrics.url for metrics pushing
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -inmemoryDataFlushInterval duration
     The interval for guaranteed saving of in-memory data to disk. The saved data survives unclean shutdowns such as OOM crash, hardware reset, SIGKILL, etc. Bigger intervals may help increase the lifetime of flash storage with limited write cycles (e.g. Raspberry PI). Smaller intervals increase disk IO load. Minimum supported value is 1s (default 5s)
  -insert.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum duration to wait in the queue when -maxConcurrentInserts concurrent insert requests are executed (default 1m0s)
  -internStringCacheExpireDuration duration
     The expiry duration for caches for interned strings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringMaxLen and -internStringDisableCache (default 6m0s)
  -internStringDisableCache
     Whether to disable caches for interned strings. This may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringCacheExpireDuration and -internStringMaxLen
  -internStringMaxLen int
     The maximum length for strings to intern. A lower limit may save memory at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringDisableCache and -internStringCacheExpireDuration (default 500)
  -license string
     License key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed via file specified by -licenseFile command-line flag
  -license.forceOffline
     Whether to enable offline verification for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise license key, which has been passed either via -license or via -licenseFile command-line flag. The issued license key must support offline verification feature. Contact info@victoriametrics.com if you need offline license verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries
  -licenseFile string
     Path to file with license key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed inline via -license command-line flag
  -logNewSeries
     Whether to log new series. This option is for debug purposes only. It can lead to performance issues when big number of new series are ingested into VictoriaMetrics
  -loggerDisableTimestamps
     Whether to disable writing timestamps in logs
  -loggerErrorsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -loggerFormat string
     Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
  -loggerJSONFields string
     Allows renaming fields in JSON formatted logs. Example: "ts:timestamp,msg:message" renames "ts" to "timestamp" and "msg" to "message". Supported fields: ts, level, caller, msg
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -loggerMaxArgLen int
     The maximum length of a single logged argument. Longer arguments are replaced with 'arg_start..arg_end', where 'arg_start' and 'arg_end' is prefix and suffix of the arg with the length not exceeding -loggerMaxArgLen / 2 (default 1000)
  -loggerOutput string
     Output for the logs. Supported values: stderr, stdout (default "stderr")
  -loggerTimezone string
     Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
  -loggerWarnsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -maxConcurrentInserts int
     The maximum number of concurrent insert requests. Set higher value when clients send data over slow networks. Default value depends on the number of available CPU cores. It should work fine in most cases since it minimizes resource usage. See also -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 32)
  -memory.allowedBytes size
     Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -memory.allowedPercent float
     Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metrics.exposeMetadata
     Whether to expose TYPE and HELP metadata at the /metrics page, which is exposed at -httpListenAddr . The metadata may be needed when the /metrics page is consumed by systems, which require this information. For example, Managed Prometheus in Google Cloud - https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/docs/managed-prometheus/troubleshooting#missing-metric-type
  -metricsAuthKey value
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -metricsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -metricsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -metricsAuthKey=http://host/path or -metricsAuthKey=https://host/path
  -mtls array
     Whether to require valid client certificate for https requests to the corresponding -httpListenAddr . This flag works only if -tls flag is set. See also -mtlsCAFile . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -mtlsCAFile array
     Optional path to TLS Root CA for verifying client certificates at the corresponding -httpListenAddr when -mtls is enabled. By default the host system TLS Root CA is used for client certificate verification. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pprofAuthKey value
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides -httpAuth.*
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -pprofAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -pprofAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -pprofAuthKey=http://host/path or -pprofAuthKey=https://host/path
  -precisionBits int
     The number of precision bits to store per each value. Lower precision bits improves data compression at the cost of precision loss (default 64)
  -prevCacheRemovalPercent float
     Items in the previous caches are removed when the percent of requests it serves becomes lower than this value. Higher values reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -cacheExpireDuration (default 0.1)
  -pushmetrics.disableCompression
     Whether to disable request body compression when pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url
  -pushmetrics.extraLabel array
     Optional labels to add to metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.extraLabel='instance="foo"' adds instance="foo" label to all the metrics pushed to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.header array
     Optional HTTP request header to send to every -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.header='Authorization: Basic foobar' adds 'Authorization: Basic foobar' header to every request to every -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -pushmetrics.interval duration
     Interval for pushing metrics to every -pushmetrics.url (default 10s)
  -pushmetrics.url array
     Optional URL to push metrics exposed at /metrics page. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#push-metrics . By default, metrics exposed at /metrics page aren't pushed to any remote storage
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -retentionFilter array
     Retention filter in the format 'filter:retention'. For example, '{env="dev"}:3d' configures the retention for time series with env="dev" label to 3 days. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#retention-filters for details. This flag is available only in VictoriaMetrics enterprise. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -retentionPeriod value
     Data with timestamps outside the retentionPeriod is automatically deleted. The minimum retentionPeriod is 24h or 1d. See also -retentionFilter
     The following optional suffixes are supported: s (second), h (hour), d (day), w (week), y (year). If suffix isn't set, then the duration is counted in months (default 1)
  -retentionTimezoneOffset duration
     The offset for performing indexdb rotation. If set to 0, then the indexdb rotation is performed at 4am UTC time per each -retentionPeriod. If set to 2h, then the indexdb rotation is performed at 4am EET time (the timezone with +2h offset)
  -rpc.disableCompression
     Whether to disable compression of the data sent from vmstorage to vmselect. This reduces CPU usage at the cost of higher network bandwidth usage
  -search.maxConcurrentRequests int
     The maximum number of concurrent vmselect requests the vmstorage can process at -vmselectAddr. It shouldn't be high, since a single request usually saturates a CPU core, and many concurrently executed requests may require high amounts of memory. See also -search.maxQueueDuration (default 32)
  -search.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum time the incoming vmselect request waits for execution when -search.maxConcurrentRequests limit is reached (default 10s)
  -search.maxTagKeys int
     The maximum number of tag keys returned per search. See also -search.maxLabelsAPISeries and -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration (default 100000)
  -search.maxTagValueSuffixesPerSearch int
     The maximum number of tag value suffixes returned from /metrics/find (default 100000)
  -search.maxTagValues int
     The maximum number of tag values returned per search. See also -search.maxLabelsAPISeries and -search.maxLabelsAPIDuration (default 100000)
  -search.maxUniqueTimeseries int
     The maximum number of unique time series, which can be scanned during every query. This allows protecting against heavy queries, which select unexpectedly high number of series. When set to zero, the limit is automatically calculated based on -search.maxConcurrentRequests (inversely proportional) and memory available to the process (proportional). See also -search.max* command-line flags at vmselect.
  -smallMergeConcurrency int
     Deprecated: this flag does nothing
  -snapshotAuthKey value
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /snapshot* pages
     Flag value can be read from the given file when using -snapshotAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -snapshotAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -snapshotAuthKey=http://host/path or -snapshotAuthKey=https://host/path
  -snapshotCreateTimeout duration
     Deprecated: this flag does nothing
  -snapshotsMaxAge value
     Automatically delete snapshots older than -snapshotsMaxAge if it is set to non-zero duration. Make sure that backup process has enough time to finish the backup before the corresponding snapshot is automatically deleted
     The following optional suffixes are supported: s (second), h (hour), d (day), w (week), y (year). If suffix isn't set, then the duration is counted in months (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeIndexDBDataBlocks size
     Overrides max size for indexdb/dataBlocks cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/single-server-victoriametrics/#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeIndexDBIndexBlocks size
     Overrides max size for indexdb/indexBlocks cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/single-server-victoriametrics/#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeIndexDBTagFilters size
     Overrides max size for indexdb/tagFiltersToMetricIDs cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/single-server-victoriametrics/#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeStorageTSID size
     Overrides max size for storage/tsid cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/single-server-victoriametrics/#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 0)
  -storage.maxDailySeries int
     The maximum number of unique series can be added to the storage during the last 24 hours. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series churn rate. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#cardinality-limiter . See also -storage.maxHourlySeries
  -storage.maxHourlySeries int
     The maximum number of unique series can be added to the storage during the last hour. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series cardinality. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#cardinality-limiter . See also -storage.maxDailySeries
  -storage.minFreeDiskSpaceBytes size
     The minimum free disk space at -storageDataPath after which the storage stops accepting new data
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 10000000)
  -storage.vminsertConnsShutdownDuration duration
     The time needed for gradual closing of vminsert connections during graceful shutdown. Bigger duration reduces spikes in CPU, RAM and disk IO load on the remaining vmstorage nodes during rolling restart. Smaller duration reduces the time needed to close all the vminsert connections, thus reducing the time for graceful shutdown. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/cluster-victoriametrics/#improving-re-routing-performance-during-restart (default 25s)
  -storageDataPath string
     Path to storage data (default "vmstorage-data")
  -tls array
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at the given -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set. See also -mtls
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Empty values are set to false.
  -tlsAutocertCacheDir string
     Directory to store TLS certificates issued via Let's Encrypt. Certificates are lost on restarts if this flag isn't set. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertEmail string
     Contact email for the issued Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. See also -tlsAutocertHosts and -tlsAutocertCacheDir .This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
  -tlsAutocertHosts array
     Optional hostnames for automatic issuing of Let's Encrypt TLS certificates. These hostnames must be reachable at -httpListenAddr . The -httpListenAddr must listen tcp port 443 . The -tlsAutocertHosts overrides -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile . See also -tlsAutocertEmail and -tlsAutocertCacheDir . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise/
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCertFile array
     Path to file with TLS certificate for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower. The provided certificate file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsKeyFile array
     Path to file with TLS key for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated. See also -tlsAutocertHosts
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -tlsMinVersion array
     Optional minimum TLS version to use for the corresponding -httpListenAddr if -tls is set. Supported values: TLS10, TLS11, TLS12, TLS13
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
     Value can contain comma inside single-quoted or double-quoted string, {}, [] and () braces.
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version
  -vminsertAddr string
     TCP address to accept connections from vminsert services (default ":8400")
  -vmselectAddr string
     TCP address to accept connections from vmselect services (default ":8401")

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