--- /dev/null
+= Tahoe Statistics =
+
+Each Tahoe node collects and publishes statistics about its operations as it
+runs. These include counters of how many files have been uploaded and
+downloaded, CPU usage information, performance numbers like latency of
+storage server operations, and available disk space.
+
+The easiest way to see the stats for any given node is use the web interface.
+From the main "Welcome Page", follow the "Operational Statistics" link inside
+the small "This Client" box. If the welcome page lives at
+http://localhost:3456/, then the statistics page will live at
+http://localhost:3456/statistics . This presents a summary of the stats
+block, along with a copy of the raw counters. To obtain just the raw counters
+(in JSON format), use /statistics?t=json instead.
+
+= Statistics Categories =
+
+The stats dictionary contains two keys: 'counters' and 'stats'. 'counters'
+are strictly counters: they are reset to zero when the node is started, and
+grow upwards. 'stats' are non-incrementing values, used to measure the
+current state of various systems. Some stats are actually booleans, expressed
+as '1' for true and '0' for false (internal restrictions require all stats
+values to be numbers).
+
+Under both the 'counters' and 'stats' dictionaries, each individual stat has
+a key with a dot-separated name, breaking them up into groups like
+'cpu_monitor' and 'storage_server'.
+
+The currently available stats (as of release 1.6.0 or so) are described here:
+
+counters.storage_server.*: this group counts inbound storage-server
+ operations. They are not provided by client-only
+ nodes which have been configured to not run a
+ storage server (with [storage]enabled=false in
+ tahoe.cfg)
+ allocate, write, close, abort: these are for immutable file uploads.
+ 'allocate' is incremented when a client asks
+ if it can upload a share to the server.
+ 'write' is incremented for each chunk of
+ data written. 'close' is incremented when
+ the share is finished. 'abort' is
+ incremented if the client abandons the
+ uploaed.
+ get, read: these are for immutable file downloads. 'get' is incremented
+ when a client asks if the server has a specific share. 'read' is
+ incremented for each chunk of data read.
+ readv, writev: these are for immutable file creation, publish, and
+ retrieve. 'readv' is incremented each time a client reads
+ part of a mutable share. 'writev' is incremented each time a
+ client sends a modification request.
+ add-lease, renew, cancel: these are for share lease modifications.
+ 'add-lease' is incremented when an 'add-lease'
+ operation is performed (which either adds a new
+ lease or renews an existing lease). 'renew' is
+ for the 'renew-lease' operation (which can only
+ be used to renew an existing one). 'cancel' is
+ used for the 'cancel-lease' operation.
+ bytes_freed: this counts how many bytes were freed when a 'cancel-lease'
+ operation removed the last lease from a share and the share
+ was thus deleted.
+ bytes_added: this counts how many bytes were consumed by immutable share
+ uploads. It is incremented at the same time as the 'close'
+ counter.
+
+stats.storage_server.*:
+ allocated: this counts how many bytes are currently 'allocated', which
+ tracks the space that will eventually be consumed by immutable
+ share upload operations. The stat is increased as soon as the
+ upload begins (at the same time the 'allocated' counter is
+ incremented), and goes back to zero when the 'close' or 'abort'
+ message is received (at which point the 'disk_used' stat should
+ incremented by the same amount).
+ disk_total
+ disk_used
+ disk_free_for_root
+ disk_free_for_nonroot
+ disk_avail
+ reserved_space: these all reflect disk-space usage policies and status.
+ 'disk_total' is the total size of disk where the storage
+ server's BASEDIR/storage/shares directory lives, as reported
+ by /bin/df or equivalent. 'disk_used', 'disk_free_for_root',
+ and 'disk_free_for_nonroot' show related information.
+ 'reserved_space' reports the reservation configured by the
+ tahoe.cfg [storage]reserved_space value. 'disk_avail'
+ reports the remaining disk space available for the Tahoe
+ server after subtracting reserved_space from disk_avail. All
+ values are in bytes.
+ accepting_immutable_shares: this is '1' if the storage server is currently
+ accepting uploads of immutable shares. It may be
+ '0' if a server is disabled by configuration, or
+ if the disk is full (i.e. disk_avail is less
+ than reserved_space).
+ total_bucket_count: this counts the number of 'buckets' (i.e. unique
+ storage-index values) currently managed by the storage
+ server. It indicates roughly how many files are managed
+ by the server.
+ latencies.*.*: these stats keep track of local disk latencies for
+ storage-server operations. A number of percentile values are
+ tracked for many operations. For example,
+ 'storage_server.latencies.readv.50_0_percentile' records the
+ median response time for a 'readv' request. All values are in
+ seconds. These are recorded by the storage server, starting
+ from the time the request arrives (post-deserialization) and
+ ending when the response begins serialization. As such, they
+ are mostly useful for measuring disk speeds. The operations
+ tracked are the same as the counters.storage_server.* counter
+ values (allocate, write, close, get, read, add-lease, renew,
+ cancel, readv, writev). The percentile values tracked are:
+ mean, 01_0_percentile, 10_0_percentile, 50_0_percentile,
+ 90_0_percentile, 95_0_percentile, 99_0_percentile,
+ 99_9_percentile. (the last value, 99.9 percentile, means that
+ 999 out of the last 1000 operations were faster than the
+ given number, and is the same threshold used by Amazon's
+ internal SLA, according to the Dynamo paper).
+
+counters.uploader.files_uploaded
+counters.uploader.bytes_uploaded
+counters.downloader.files_downloaded
+counters.downloader.bytes_downloaded
+
+ These count client activity: a Tahoe client will increment these when it
+ uploads or downloads an immutable file. 'files_uploaded' is incremented by
+ one for each operation, while 'bytes_uploaded' is incremented by the size of
+ the file.
+
+counters.mutable.files_published
+counters.mutable.bytes_published
+counters.mutable.files_retrieved
+counters.mutable.bytes_retrieved
+
+ These count client activity for mutable files. 'published' is the act of
+ changing an existing mutable file (or creating a brand-new mutable file).
+ 'retrieved' is the act of reading its current contents.
+
+counters.chk_upload_helper.*
+
+ These count activity of the "Helper", which receives ciphertext from clients
+ and performs erasure-coding and share upload for files that are not already
+ in the grid. The code which implements these counters is in
+ src/allmydata/immutable/offloaded.py .
+
+ upload_requests: incremented each time a client asks to upload a file
+ upload_already_present: incremented when the file is already in the grid
+ upload_need_upload: incremented when the file is not already in the grid
+ resumes: incremented when the helper already has partial ciphertext for
+ the requested upload, indicating that the client is resuming an
+ earlier upload
+ fetched_bytes: this counts how many bytes of ciphertext have been fetched
+ from uploading clients
+ encoded_bytes: this counts how many bytes of ciphertext have been
+ encoded and turned into successfully-uploaded shares. If no
+ uploads have failed or been abandoned, encoded_bytes should
+ eventually equal fetched_bytes.
+
+stats.chk_upload_helper.*
+
+ These also track Helper activity:
+
+ active_uploads: how many files are currently being uploaded. 0 when idle.
+ incoming_count: how many cache files are present in the incoming/ directory,
+ which holds ciphertext files that are still being fetched
+ from the client
+ incoming_size: total size of cache files in the incoming/ directory
+ incoming_size_old: total size of 'old' cache files (more than 48 hours)
+ encoding_count: how many cache files are present in the encoding/ directory,
+ which holds ciphertext files that are being encoded and
+ uploaded
+ encoding_size: total size of cache files in the encoding/ directory
+ encoding_size_old: total size of 'old' cache files (more than 48 hours)
+
+stats.node.uptime: how many seconds since the node process was started
+
+stats.cpu_monitor.*:
+ .1min_avg, 5min_avg, 15min_avg: estimate of what percentage of system CPU
+ time was consumed by the node process, over
+ the given time interval. Expressed as a
+ float, 0.0 for 0%, 1.0 for 100%
+ .total: estimate of total number of CPU seconds consumed by node since
+ the process was started. Ticket #472 indicates that .total may
+ sometimes be negative due to wraparound of the kernel's counter.
+
+stats.load_monitor.*:
+ When enabled, the "load monitor" continually schedules a one-second
+ callback, and measures how late the response is. This estimates system load
+ (if the system is idle, the response should be on time). This is only
+ enabled if a stats-gatherer is configured.
+
+ .avg_load: average "load" value (seconds late) over the last minute
+ .max_load: maximum "load" value over the last minute
+
+
+= Running a Tahoe Stats-Gatherer Service =
+
+The "stats-gatherer" is a simple daemon that periodically collects stats from
+several tahoe nodes. It could be useful, e.g., in a production environment,
+where you want to monitor dozens of storage servers from a central management
+host.
+
+The stats gatherer listens on a network port using the same Foolscap
+connection library that Tahoe clients use to connect to storage servers.
+Tahoe nodes can be configured to connect to the stats gatherer and publish
+their stats on a periodic basis. (in fact, what happens is that nodes connect
+to the gatherer and offer it a second FURL which points back to the node's
+"stats port", which the gatherer then uses to pull stats on a periodic basis.
+The initial connection is flipped to allow the nodes to live behind NAT
+boxes, as long as the stats-gatherer has a reachable IP address)
+
+The stats-gatherer is created in the same fashion as regular tahoe client
+nodes and introducer nodes. Choose a base directory for the gatherer to live
+in (but do not create the directory). Then run:
+
+ tahoe create-stats-gatherer $BASEDIR
+
+and start it with "tahoe start $BASEDIR". Once running, the gatherer will
+write a FURL into $BASEDIR/stats_gatherer.furl .
+
+To configure a Tahoe client/server node to contact the stats gatherer, copy
+this FURL into the node's tahoe.cfg file, in a section named "[client]",
+under a key named "stats_gatherer.furl", like so:
+
+ [client]
+ stats_gatherer.furl = pb://qbo4ktl667zmtiuou6lwbjryli2brv6t@192.168.0.8:49997/wxycb4kaexzskubjnauxeoptympyf45y
+
+or simply copy the stats_gatherer.furl file into the node's base directory
+(next to the tahoe.cfg file): it will be interpreted in the same way.
+
+Once running, the stats gatherer will create a standard python "pickle" file
+in $BASEDIR/stats.pickle . Once a minute, the gatherer will pull stats
+information from every connected node and write them into the pickle. The
+pickle will contain a dictionary, in which node identifiers (known as "tubid"
+strings) are the keys, and the values are a dict with 'timestamp',
+'nickname', and 'stats' keys. d[tubid][stats] will contain the stats
+dictionary as made available at http://localhost:3456/statistics?t=json . The
+pickle file will only contain the most recent update from each node.
+
+Other tools can be built to examine these stats and render them into
+something useful. For example, a tool could sum the
+"storage_server.disk_avail' values from all servers to compute a
+total-disk-available number for the entire grid (however, the "disk watcher"
+daemon, in misc/spacetime/, is better suited for this specific task).
+
+= Using Munin To Graph Stats Values =
+
+The misc/munin/ directory contains various plugins to graph stats for Tahoe
+nodes. They are intended for use with the Munin system-management tool, which
+typically polls target systems every 5 minutes and produces a web page with
+graphs of various things over multiple time scales (last hour, last month,
+last year).
+
+Most of the plugins are designed to pull stats from a single Tahoe node, and
+are configured with the http://localhost:3456/statistics?t=json URL. The
+"tahoe_stats" plugin is designed to read from the pickle file created by the
+stats-gatherer. Some are to be used with the disk watcher, and a few (like
+tahoe_nodememory) are designed to watch the node processes directly (and must
+therefore run on the same host as the target node).
+
+Please see the docstrings at the beginning of each plugin for details, and
+the "tahoe-conf" file for notes about configuration and installing these
+plugins into a Munin environment.