Cluster version

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.

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Prominent features

• Supports all the features of the single-node version.
• Performance and capacity scale horizontally. See these docs for details.
• Supports multiple independent namespaces for time series data (aka multi-tenancy). See these docs for details.
• Supports replication. See these docs for details.

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.

Multitenancy

VictoriaMetrics cluster supports multiple isolated tenants (aka namespaces). Tenants are identified by accountID or accountID:projectID, which are put inside request urls. 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.

• VictoriaMetrics doesn't support querying multiple tenants in a single request.

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:

• vminsert - https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vminsert/tags
• vmselect - https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vmselect/tags
• vmstorage - https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vmstorage/tags

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 1.17.
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>

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:

• An example docker-compose config for VictoriaMetrics cluster
• Helm charts for VictoriaMetrics
• Kubernetes operator for VictoriaMetrics

It is possible manualy 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

Each flag values can be set through environment variables by following 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_

mTLS protection

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.

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.

It is recommended setting up alerts in vmalert or in Prometheus from this config.

Troubleshooting

See trobuleshooting docs.

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.

URL format

• 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.
  • <suffix> may have the following values:
    • prometheus and prometheus/api/v1/write - for inserting data with Prometheus remote write API.
    • datadog/api/v1/series - for inserting data with DataDog submit metrics API. See these docs for details.
    • influx/write and influx/api/v2/write - for inserting data with InfluxDB line protocol. See these docs for details.
    • opentsdb/api/put - for accepting OpenTSDB HTTP /api/put requests. This handler is disabled by default. It is exposed on a distinct TCP address set via -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr command-line flag. See these docs for details.
    • prometheus/api/v1/import - for importing data obtained via api/v1/export at vmselect (see below).
    • prometheus/api/v1/import/native - for importing data obtained via api/v1/export/native on vmselect (see below).
    • prometheus/api/v1/import/csv - for importing arbitrary CSV data. See these docs for details.
    • prometheus/api/v1/import/prometheus - for importing data in Prometheus text exposition format and in OpenMetrics format. See these docs for details.

• 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 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.

• 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. This functionality is available in Enterprise package. Enterprise binaries can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page.
    • 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 accessing vmalert's UI: http://<vmselect>:8481/select/<accountID>/prometheus/vmalert/home. 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 snasphots.
  • /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 increases the number of active time series the cluster can handle. This also increases query performance over time series with high churn rate. 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.
• Adding more CPU and RAM to existing vmstorage nodes 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>.

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.

Cluster should remain in working state if at least a single node of each type remains available during the update process. See cluster availability section for details.

Cluster availability

• HTTP load balancer must stop routing requests to unavailable vminsert and vmselect nodes.

• The cluster remains available if at least a single vmstorage node exists:

  • vminsert re-routes incoming data from unavailable vmstorage nodes to healthy vmstorage nodes
  • vmselect continues serving partial responses if at least a single vmstorage node is available. If consistency over availability is preferred, then either pass -search.denyPartialResponse command-line flag to vmselect or pass deny_partial_response=1 query arg in requests to vmselect.

vmselect doesn't serve partial responses for API handlers returning raw datapoints - /api/v1/export* endpoints, since users usually expect this data is always complete.

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 determining 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.

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 -search.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.maxUniqueTimeseries at vmselect component limits the number of unique time series a single query can find and process. vmselect passes the limit to vmstorage component, which keeps in memory some metainformation about the time series located by each query and spends some CPU time for processing the found time series. This means that the maximum memory usage and CPU usage a single query can use at vmstorage is proportional to -search.maxUniqueTimeseries.
• -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 unexpected heavy queries.
• -search.maxConcurrentRequests at vmselect limits the number of concurrent requests a single vmselect node can process. Bigger number of concurrent requests usually means bigger memory usage 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 suspending additional incoming queries if the concurrency limit is reached. vmselect provides -search.maxQueueDuration command-line flag for limiting the max wait time for suspended queries.
• -search.maxSamplesPerSeries at vmselect limits the number of raw samples the query can process per each time series. vmselect sequentially processes raw samples 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.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.maxTagKeys at vmselect 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.
• -search.maxTagValues at vmselect 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.
• -storage.maxDailySeries at vmstorage can be used for limiting the number of time series seen per day.
• -storage.maxHourlySeries at vmstorage can be used for limiting the number of active time series.

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 independed 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.

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 temporariliy 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.

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.

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.

When the replication is enabled, -dedup.minScrapeInterval=1ms command-line flag must be passed to vmselect nodes, 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 bigger values 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 the same -dedup.minScrapeInterval command-line flag value must be passed to both vmselect and vmstorage nodes because of the following aspects:

By default vminsert tries to route all the samples for a single time series to a single vmstorage node. But samples for a single time series can be spread among multiple vmstorage nodes under certain conditions:

• when adding/removing vmstorage nodes. Then new samples for a part of time series will be 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.

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.

Downsampling

Downsampling is available in enterprise version of VictoriaMetrics. It is configured with -downsampling.period command-line flag. The same flag value must be passed to both vmstorage and vmselect nodes. See these docs for details.

Enterprise binaries can be downloaded and evaluated for free from the releases page.

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

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's UI through vmselect's Web interface.

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

Community and contributions

We are open to third-party pull requests provided they follow the KISS design principle:

• Prefer simple code and architecture.
• Avoid complex abstractions.
• Avoid magic code and fancy algorithms.
• Avoid big external dependencies.
• Minimize the number of moving parts in the distributed system.
• Avoid automated decisions, which may hurt cluster availability, consistency or performance.

Adhering to the KISS principle simplifies the resulting code and architecture, so it can be reviewed, understood and verified by many people.

Due to KISS, cluster version of VictoriaMetrics has no the following "features" popular in distributed computing world:

• Fragile gossip protocols. See failed attempt in Thanos.
• Hard-to-understand-and-implement-properly Paxos protocols.
• Complex replication schemes, which may go nuts in unforeseen edge cases. See replication docs for details.
• Automatic data reshuffling between storage nodes, which may hurt cluster performance and availability.
• Automatic cluster resizing, which may cost you a lot of money if improperly configured.
• Automatic discovering and addition of new nodes in the cluster, which may mix data between dev and prod clusters :)
• Automatic leader election, which may result in split brain disaster on network errors.

Reporting bugs

Report bugs and propose new features here.

List of command-line flags

• List of command-line flags for vminsert
• List of command-line flags for vmselect
• List of command-line flags for vmstorage

List of command-line flags for vminsert

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

  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS for connections to -storageNode. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -clusternativeListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for data from other vminsert nodes in multi-level cluster setup. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#multi-level-cluster-setup . Usually :8400 must be set. Doesn't 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 /api/v1/series
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 67108864)
  -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 -dropSamplesOnOverload (default true)
  -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
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default only IPv4 TCP and UDP is used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from 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
     By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the EULA https://victoriametrics.com/assets/VM_EULA.pdf
  -flagsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -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()
  -graphiteListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for Graphite plaintext data. Usually :2003 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
  -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 http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -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 string
     Password for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr string
     Address to listen for http connections (default ":8480")
  -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, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 104857600)
  -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.
  -influx.maxLineSize size
     The maximum size in bytes for a single InfluxDB line during parsing
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 262144)
  -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
  -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 metic 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 for waiting in the queue for insert requests due to -maxConcurrentInserts (default 1m0s)
  -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")
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -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 inserts. Default value should work for most cases, since it minimizes the overhead for concurrent inserts. This option is tigthly coupled with -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 16)
  -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, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 16384)
  -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 OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metricsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for OpentTSDB HTTP put requests. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
  -opentsdbListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for OpentTSDB 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
  -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, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 string
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -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
  -relabelDebug
     Whether to log metrics before and after relabeling with -relabelConfig. If the -relabelDebug is enabled, then the metrics aren't sent to storage. This is useful for debugging the relabeling configs
  -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
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -tls
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
  -tlsCertFile string
     Path to file with TLS certificate 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
  -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.
  -tlsKeyFile string
     Path to file with TLS key if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version
  -vmstorageDialTimeout duration
     Timeout for establishing RPC connections from vminsert to vmstorage (default 5s)

List of command-line flags for vmselect

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

  -cacheDataPath string
     Path to directory for cache files. Cache isn't saved if empty
  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS for connections to -storageNode. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -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
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -clusternativeListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for requests from other vmselect nodes in multi-level cluster setup. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#multi-level-cluster-setup . Usually :8401 must be set. Doesn't 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
  -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. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#downsampling for details
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default only IPv4 TCP and UDP is used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from 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
     By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the EULA https://victoriametrics.com/assets/VM_EULA.pdf
  -flagsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -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()
  -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 http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -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 string
     Password for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr string
     Address to listen for http connections (default ":8481")
  -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")
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -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 OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metricsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -pprofAuthKey string
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -replicationFactor int
     How many copies of every time series is available on vmstorage nodes. See -replicationFactor command-line flag for vminsert nodes (default 1)
  -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 during data backfilling
  -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 overriden 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.latencyOffset duration
     The time when data points become visible in query results after the collection. Too small value can result in incomplete last points for query results (default 30s)
  -search.logSlowQueryDuration duration
     Log queries with execution time exceeding this value. Zero disables slow query logging (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. See also -search.maxQueueDuration (default 8)
  -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.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 meaining due to historical reasons
  -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 Grafana. There is no sense in setting this limit to values bigger than the horizontal resolution of the graph (default 30000)
  -search.maxQueryDuration duration
     The maximum duration for query execution (default 30s)
  -search.maxQueryLen size
     The maximum search query length in bytes
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (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.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.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 (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
     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 string
     Optional authKey for resetting rollup cache via /internal/resetRollupResultCache call
  -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.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.
  -storageNode array
     Comma-separated addresses of vmstorage nodes; usage: -storageNode=vmstorage-host1,...,vmstorage-hostN
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -tls
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
  -tlsCertFile string
     Path to file with TLS certificate 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
  -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.
  -tlsKeyFile string
     Path to file with TLS key if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -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 (default 5s)

List of command-line flags for vmstorage

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

  -bigMergeConcurrency int
     The maximum number of CPU cores to use for big merges. Default value is used if set to 0
  -cluster.tls
     Whether to use TLS when accepting connections from vminsert and vmselect. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -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
  -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.html#mtls-protection
  -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. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#downsampling for details
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default only IPv4 TCP and UDP is used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from 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
     By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the EULA https://victoriametrics.com/assets/VM_EULA.pdf
  -finalMergeDelay duration
     The delay before starting final merge for per-month partition after no new data is ingested into it. Final merge may require additional disk IO and CPU resources. Final merge may increase query speed and reduce disk space usage in some cases. Zero value disables final merge
  -flagsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -forceFlushAuthKey string
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /internal/force_flush pages
  -forceMergeAuthKey string
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /internal/force_merge pages
  -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 http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -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 string
     Password for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr string
     Address to listen for http connections (default ":8482")
  -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")
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -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 OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metricsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -pprofAuthKey string
     Auth key for /debug/pprof/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -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)
  -retentionPeriod value
     Data with timestamps outside the retentionPeriod is automatically deleted
     The following optional suffixes are supported: 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.maxTagKeys int
     The maximum number of tag keys returned per search (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 (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. Zero means 'no limit'. See also -search.max* command-line flags at vmselect
  -smallMergeConcurrency int
     The maximum number of CPU cores to use for small merges. Default value is used if set to 0
  -snapshotAuthKey string
     authKey, which must be passed in query string to /snapshot* pages
  -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: 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.html#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeIndexDBIndexBlocks size
     Overrides max size for indexdb/indexBlocks cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeIndexDBTagFilters size
     Overrides max size for indexdb/tagFilters cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
  -storage.cacheSizeStorageTSID size
     Overrides max size for storage/tsid cache. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#cache-tuning
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (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 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 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, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 10000000)
  -storageDataPath string
     Path to storage data (default "vmstorage-data")
  -tls
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
  -tlsCertFile string
     Path to file with TLS certificate 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
  -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.
  -tlsKeyFile string
     Path to file with TLS key if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -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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