- VictoriaLogs supports fast full-text search over high-cardinality [log fields](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/keyconcepts/#data-model)
It is safe upgrading VictoriaLogs to new versions unless [release notes](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/changelog/) say otherwise.
It is safe to skip multiple versions during the upgrade unless [release notes](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/changelog/) say otherwise.
It is recommended to perform regular upgrades to the latest version, since it may contain important bug fixes, performance optimizations or new features.
By default VictoriaLogs stores log entries with timestamps in the time range `[now-7d, now]`, while dropping logs outside the given time range.
E.g. it uses the retention of 7 days. The retention can be configured with `-retentionPeriod` command-line flag.
This flag accepts values starting from `1d` (one day) up to `100y` (100 years). See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/#time-durations)
for the supported duration formats.
For example, the following command starts VictoriaLogs with the retention of 8 weeks:
The `vl_rows_dropped_total` [metric](#monitoring) is incremented each time an ingested log entry is dropped because of timestamp outside the retention.
VictoriaLogs stores all its data in a single directory - `victoria-logs-data`. The path to the directory can be changed via `-storageDataPath` command-line flag.
For example, the following command starts VictoriaLogs, which stores the data at `/var/lib/victoria-logs`:
VictoriaLogs supports multitenancy. A tenant is identified by `(AccountID, ProjectID)` pair, where `AccountID` and `ProjectID` are arbitrary 32-bit unsigned integers.
VictoriaLogs doesn't perform per-tenant authorization. Use [vmauth](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmauth/) or similar tools for per-tenant authorization.
Here is a [benchmark suite](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/master/deployment/logs-benchmark) for comparing data ingestion performance
Pass `-help` to VictoriaLogs in order to see the list of supported command-line flags with their description:
```
-cacheExpireDuration duration
Items are removed from in-memory caches after they aren't accessed for this duration. Lower values may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -prevCacheRemovalPercent (default 30m0s)
Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables in addition to the command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from the command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
Flag value can be read from the given file when using -flagsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -flagsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -flagsAuthKey=http://host/path or -flagsAuthKey=https://host/path
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()
Log entries with timestamps bigger than now+futureRetention are rejected during data ingestion; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/#retention
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 2d)
Incoming connections to -httpListenAddr are closed after the configured timeout. This may help evenly spreading load among a cluster of services behind TCP-level load balancer. Zero value disables closing of incoming connections (default 2m0s)
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
Flag value can be read from the given file when using -httpAuth.password=file:///abs/path/to/file or -httpAuth.password=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -httpAuth.password=http://host/path or -httpAuth.password=https://host/path
TCP address to listen for http connections. See also -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol (default ":9428")
-httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -httpListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt . With enabled proxy protocol http server cannot serve regular /metrics endpoint. Use -pushmetrics.url for metrics pushing
The interval for guaranteed saving of in-memory data to disk. The saved data survives unclean shutdowns such as OOM crash, hardware reset, SIGKILL, etc. Bigger intervals may help increase the lifetime of flash storage with limited write cycles (e.g. Raspberry PI). Smaller intervals increase disk IO load. Minimum supported value is 1s (default 5s)
The maximum size of a single line, which can be read by /insert/* handlers
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 262144)
-insert.maxQueueDuration duration
The maximum duration to wait in the queue when -maxConcurrentInserts concurrent insert requests are executed (default 1m0s)
-internStringCacheExpireDuration duration
The expiry duration for caches for interned strings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringMaxLen and -internStringDisableCache (default 6m0s)
-internStringDisableCache
Whether to disable caches for interned strings. This may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringCacheExpireDuration and -internStringMaxLen
The maximum length for strings to intern. A lower limit may save memory at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringDisableCache and -internStringCacheExpireDuration (default 500)
Whether to log all the ingested log entries; this can be useful for debugging of data ingestion; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/data-ingestion/ ; see also -logNewStreams
Whether to log creation of new streams; this can be useful for debugging of high cardinality issues with log streams; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/keyconcepts/#stream-fields ; see also -logIngestedRows
Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
-loggerFormat string
Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
-loggerJSONFields string
Allows renaming fields in JSON formatted logs. Example: "ts:timestamp,msg:message" renames "ts" to "timestamp" and "msg" to "message". Supported fields: ts, level, caller, msg
-loggerLevel string
Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
-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
The maximum number of concurrent insert requests. The default value should work for most cases, since it minimizes memory usage. The default value can be increased when clients send data over slow networks. See also -insert.maxQueueDuration.
Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from the OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
Flag value can be read from the given file when using -metricsAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -metricsAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -metricsAuthKey=http://host/path or -metricsAuthKey=https://host/path
Flag value can be read from the given file when using -pprofAuthKey=file:///abs/path/to/file or -pprofAuthKey=file://./relative/path/to/file . Flag value can be read from the given http/https url when using -pprofAuthKey=http://host/path or -pprofAuthKey=https://host/path
Items in the previous caches are removed when the percent of requests it serves becomes lower than this value. Higher values reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -cacheExpireDuration (default 0.1)
-pushmetrics.extraLabel array
Optional labels to add to metrics pushed to -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.extraLabel='instance="foo"' adds instance="foo" label to all the metrics pushed to -pushmetrics.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-pushmetrics.interval duration
Interval for pushing metrics to -pushmetrics.url (default 10s)
Optional URL to push metrics exposed at /metrics page. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#push-metrics . By default, metrics exposed at /metrics page aren't pushed to any remote storage
Log entries with timestamps older than now-retentionPeriod are automatically deleted; log entries with timestamps outside the retention are also rejected during data ingestion; the minimum supported retention is 1d (one day); see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/victorialogs/#retention
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 7d)
The maximum number of concurrent search requests. It shouldn't be high, since a single request can saturate all the CPU cores, while many concurrently executed requests may require high amounts of memory. See also -search.maxQueueDuration (default 6)
-search.maxQueryDuration duration
The maximum duration for query execution (default 30s)
-search.maxQueueDuration duration
The maximum time the search request waits for execution when -search.maxConcurrentRequests limit is reached; see also -search.maxQueryDuration (default 10s)
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
-tlsMinVersion string
Optional minimum TLS version to use for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. Supported values: TLS10, TLS11, TLS12, TLS13
