app/vmselect: add -search.noStaleMarkers command-line flag for disabling stale markers handling in queries

This option allows reducing CPU usage a bit when VictoriaMetrics is used
for collecting and processing non-Prometheus data. For example, InfluxDB line protocol, Graphite, OpenTSDB, CSV, etc.

README.md

@@ -664,6 +664,8 @@ Below is the output for `/path/to/vmselect -help`:
     	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.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.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

app/vmagent/README.md

@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ You can read more about relabeling in the following articles:
 
 ## Prometheus staleness markers
 
-Starting from [v1.64.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1640), `vmagent` sends [Prometheus staleness markers](https://www.robustperception.io/staleness-and-promql) for scraped metrics when the scrape target is removed from the list of targets. Prometheus staleness markers aren't sent in [stream parsing mode](#stream-parsing-mode) or if `-promscrape.disableStaleMarkers` command-line is set.
+Starting from [v1.64.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1640), `vmagent` sends [Prometheus staleness markers](https://www.robustperception.io/staleness-and-promql) for scraped metrics when the scrape target is removed from the list of targets. Prometheus staleness markers aren't sent in [stream parsing mode](#stream-parsing-mode) or if `-promscrape.noStaleMarkers` command-line is set.
 
 
 ## Stream parsing mode
@@ -648,7 +648,7 @@ See the docs at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html .
     	Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
   -promscrape.disableKeepAlive
     	Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
-  -promscrape.disableStaleMarkers
+  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
     	Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
     	The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)

app/vmselect/promql/eval.go

@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ var (
 	maxPointsPerTimeseries = flag.Int("search.maxPointsPerTimeseries", 30e3, "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 Grafana. There is no sense in setting this limit to values bigger than the horizontal resolution of the graph")
+	noStaleMarkers = flag.Bool("search.noStaleMarkers", false, "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")
 )
 
 // The minimum number of points per timeseries for enabling time rounding.
@@ -920,7 +921,7 @@ func toTagFilter(dst *storage.TagFilter, src *metricsql.LabelFilter) {
 }
 
 func dropStaleNaNs(name string, values []float64, timestamps []int64) ([]float64, []int64) {
-	if name == "default_rollup" {
+	if *noStaleMarkers || name == "default_rollup" {
 		// Do not drop Prometheus staleness marks (aka stale NaNs) for default_rollup() function,
 		// since it uses them for Prometheus-style staleness detection.
 		return values, timestamps

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -8,9 +8,10 @@ sort: 15
 
 * FEATURE: add `bitmap_and(q, mask)`, `bitmap_or(q, mask)` and `bitmak_xor(q, mask)` functions to [MetricsQL](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/MetricsQL.html). These functions allow performing bitwise operations over data points in time series. See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/1541).
 * FEATURE: vmalert: add `-remoteWrite.disablePathAppend` command-line flag, which can be used when custom `-remoteWrite.url` must be specified. For example, `./vmalert -disablePathAppend -remoteWrite.url='http://foo.bar/a/b/c?d=e'` would write data to `http://foo.bar/a/b/c?d=e` instead of `http://foo.bar/a/b/c?d=e/api/v1/write`. See [this pull request](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/1536).
+* FEATURE: vmagent: add `-promscrape.noStaleMarkers` command-line flag for disabling sending Prometheus stale markers for metrics from disappeared scrape targets. This option may be used for reducing memory usage when scraping big number of metrics with big number of labels and when stale markers aren't needed.
+* FEATURE: vmselect: add `-search.noStaleMarkers` command-line flag for stale markers handling in queries.
 
 * BUGFIX: vmagent: stop scrapers for deleted targets before starting scrapers for added targets. This should prevent from possible time series overlap when old targets are substituted by new targets (for example, during new deployment in Kubernetes). The overlap could lead to incorrect query results. See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/1509).
-* BUGFIX: vmagent: add `-promscrape.disableStaleMarkers` command-line flag for disabling sending Prometheus stale markers for metrics from disappeared scrape targets. This option may be used for reducing memory usage when scraping big number of metrics with big number of labels and when stale markers aren't needed.
 
 
 ## [v1.64.0](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases/tag/v1.64.0)

docs/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.md

@@ -668,6 +668,8 @@ Below is the output for `/path/to/vmselect -help`:
     	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.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.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

docs/README.md

@@ -1720,6 +1720,8 @@ Pass `-help` to VictoriaMetrics in order to see the list of supported command-li
     	Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
   -promscrape.disableKeepAlive
     	Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
+  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
+    	Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
     	The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrentWaitTime duration
@@ -1809,6 +1811,8 @@ Pass `-help` to VictoriaMetrics in order to see the list of supported command-li
     	The maximum number of unique time series each search can scan. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 300000)
   -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.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

docs/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.md

@@ -1724,6 +1724,8 @@ Pass `-help` to VictoriaMetrics in order to see the list of supported command-li
     	Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
   -promscrape.disableKeepAlive
     	Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
+  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
+    	Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
     	The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrentWaitTime duration
@@ -1813,6 +1815,8 @@ Pass `-help` to VictoriaMetrics in order to see the list of supported command-li
     	The maximum number of unique time series each search can scan. This option allows limiting memory usage (default 300000)
   -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.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

docs/vmagent.md

@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ You can read more about relabeling in the following articles:
 
 ## Prometheus staleness markers
 
-Starting from [v1.64.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1640), `vmagent` sends [Prometheus staleness markers](https://www.robustperception.io/staleness-and-promql) for scraped metrics when the scrape target is removed from the list of targets. Prometheus staleness markers aren't sent in [stream parsing mode](#stream-parsing-mode) or if `-promscrape.disableStaleMarkers` command-line is set.
+Starting from [v1.64.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1640), `vmagent` sends [Prometheus staleness markers](https://www.robustperception.io/staleness-and-promql) for scraped metrics when the scrape target is removed from the list of targets. Prometheus staleness markers aren't sent in [stream parsing mode](#stream-parsing-mode) or if `-promscrape.noStaleMarkers` command-line is set.
 
 
 ## Stream parsing mode
@@ -652,7 +652,7 @@ See the docs at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html .
     	Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
   -promscrape.disableKeepAlive
     	Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
-  -promscrape.disableStaleMarkers
+  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
     	Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
   -promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
     	The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)

lib/promscrape/scrapework.go

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ import (
 var (
 	suppressScrapeErrors = flag.Bool("promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors", false, "Whether to suppress scrape errors logging. "+
 		"The last error for each target is always available at '/targets' page even if scrape errors logging is suppressed")
-	disableStaleMarkers = flag.Bool("promscrape.disableStaleMarkers", false, "Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode")
+	noStaleMarkers = flag.Bool("promscrape.noStaleMarkers", false, "Whether to disable seding Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. See also https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode")
 )
 
 // ScrapeWork represents a unit of work for scraping Prometheus metrics.
@@ -487,7 +487,7 @@ func (sw *scrapeWork) updateSeriesAdded(wc *writeRequestCtx) {
 }
 
 func (sw *scrapeWork) updateActiveSeries(wc *writeRequestCtx) {
-	if *disableStaleMarkers {
+	if *noStaleMarkers {
 		return
 	}
 	b := sw.activeSeriesBuf[:0]