Routing configuration

Query routing is managed by two primary components, the Service Gateway, and the Resource Coordinator. Queries are broken into partials and distributed across query instances and collected into a final result in the Aggregator.

process diagram

Unless otherwise specified, the arrows in the diagram represent asynchronous q IPC communication between processes. Query flow is as follows.

arrow	description
`1`	Client makes API request to a Service Gateway replica. This can be synchronous or asynchronous.
`2`	The Service Gateway forwards the request to the Resource Coordinator.
`3`	The Resource Coordinator sends partial requests to each DAP relevant to the query based on purview.
`4`	DAPs forward their responses to a single Aggregator for aggregation.
`5`	The Aggregator sends the response to the same Service Gateway the client connected to.
`6`	The Service Gateway sends response back to client.

These components route queries across one or more assemblies and are installed as part of a base deployment. These components are generally configured using environment variables or a values file if using a Kubernetes based deployment. In both environment, environment variables can be used to change configuration.

Environment Variables

Configuration can be supplied to the Service Gateway or the Resource Coordinator using environment variables. Environment variables are configured differently depending on the method of deployment. In all cases, the variables are always string values.

DockerKubernetes

In Docker, environment variables are supplied under an environment key for the target service as a list of key-value pairs.

services:
  sg:
    environment:
      - KXI_NAME=sg

In a Kubernetes deployment, environment variables are passed to components using a values file. For the Service Gateway, these values are supplied under an sg-gateway key. For the Resource Coordinator, these are supplied under a resource-coordaintor key.

kdb Insights Enterprise

When running in an enterprise deployment, values are nested under either a service-gateway or qe-gateway key in the values file. See enterprise deployment configuration for more details.

service-gateway:
  sg-gateway:
    env:
      KXI_SG_TIMEOUT: "50000"
  resource-coordinator:
    env:
      KXI_SG_TIMEOUT: "50000"

Service Gateway

name	description
`GATEWAY_QIPC_PORT`	Gateway port for QIPC traffic.
`GATEWAY_QIPC_EXT_PORT`	Gateway port for external QIPC traffic.
`GATEWAY_HTTP_PORT`	Gateway port for HTTP traffic.
`SM_CONTAINER_NAMES`	Comma separated list of SM containers to connect to when using Kubernetes-based discovery. You should not need to touch this unless you've customized your SM container names. (default:`"sm"`).
`DISCOVERY_PROXY`	Discovery proxy address (not required if not using discovery).
`KXI_SG_RC_ADDR`	`host:port` of RC process to connect to.
`KXI_SG_GC_FREQ`	Frequency in minutes to run JVM Heap Garbage Collection. Default five minutes.
`KXI_SG_TIMEOUT`	Default request timeout in milliseconds (default: `60000`).
`KXI_SG_TIMEOUT_MARGIN`	Controls the amount of time to wait for the RC to complete a request in milliseconds. The service gateway waits this many milliseconds after a request has timeout out for the RC to issue a timeout request. (default: `30000`)
`KXI_RC_SERVICE_NAME`	The key that the Service Gateway looks for to find Resource Coordinators within the discovery registry. (default: `KXI-SG-RC`).
`KXI_RC_LABEL_SELECTOR`	Allow the gateway to find Resource Coordinators by label selector. Required for Kubernetes-based discovery.
`KXI_DA_LABEL_SELECTOR`	Allow the gateway to find data-access pods by label selector.
`KXI_SM_LABEL_SELECTOR`	Allow the gateway to find storage-manager pods by label selector.
`KXI_EXCLUDE_CONTAINER_NAMES`	Comma separated container sub-strings to avoid connecting to when using Kubernetes-based discovery. Defaults to `istio,sidecar`. This setting is overridden by `KXI_RC_CONTAINER_NAME` or `KXI_DA_CONTAINER_NAME`.
`KXI_RC_CONTAINER_NAME`	Comma separated Resource Coordinator exact container names to connect to when using Kubernetes-based discovery. Overrides `KXI_EXCLUDE_CONTAINER_NAMES`.
`KXI_DA_CONTAINER_NAME`	Comma separated Data Access container exact container names to connect to when using Kubernetes-based discovery. Overrides `KXI_EXCLUDE_CONTAINER_NAMES`.
`KXI_SM_CONTAINER_NAME`	Specifies the Storage Manager container names to connect when using Kubernetes-based discovery. If unspecified, we use the list of values from `SM_CONTAINER_NAMES`.
`KXI_SG_BUFFER_INITIAL`	Initial size in bytes to allocate per connected aggregator (default: 5MB as `5000000`).
`KXI_SG_BUFFER_RETAIN`	Maximum size in bytes to hold on to per connected aggregator (default: 5MB as `5000000`).
`KXI_SG_USE_SSL`	Decide if `GATEWAY_QIPC_EXT_PORT` should use TLS. Default 1.
`KXI_AUTH_DISABLED`	Set `KXI_AUTH_DISABLED=0` to use the gateway with Keycloak.
`KXI_OIDC_JSON_PATH`	OIDC JSON used for mapping Keycloak authentication endpoints.
`KXI_SCOPE_AFFINITY`	Scope affinity. Either "hard" or "soft", see scope (default: "hard").
`KXI_ASSEMBLY_KEY`	Specifies the Kubernetes label key that identifies a pod's assembly (default: `"insights.kx.com/app"`).
`KXI_GW_ENT_CACHE_TTL`	The number of milliseconds to cache the entitlements from RC (default: `30000`).
`USE_SP_WATCHER`	(Kubernetes only) Set to `1` if the GW should configure an SP watcher to automatically discover SP workers for web sockets.
`SP_SELECTOR_OVERRIDE`	If `USE_SP_WATCHER=1`, this sets the label selectors the GW will use to find SP workers: default is `sp.kx.com/role=worker,sp.kx.com/pipeline=%s`. %s will be replaced by the pipeline instance ID.
`SP_SERVICE_PORT_NAME`	If `USE_SP_WATCHER=1`, sets the port name to expect to look underneath to get the container port.
`SP_STREAM_HOST`	If not using an SP watcher, hostname for the SP worker
`SP_STREAM_PORT`	If not using an SP watcher, port for the SP worker.
`JAVA_OPTS`	CLI Flags to pass to Java. Such as `-Xms` and `-Xmx` to set minimum and max heap size. See Java memory and JAVA_OPTS below.

Streaming message buffers

For streaming messages back to clients, the gateway will stream up to KXI_SG_BUFFER_INITIAL per write operation. Total payloads can be any size, and this setting controls the chunk sizes. The default is based empherically on a "moderate" network speed of 4Mb/s. For configurations with higher performing network speeds, this setting should be increased.

Set KXI_SG_STREAM_THRESHOLD on the resource-coordinator and aggregator to control when they will decide to use streaming. Also defaults to 5MB in bytes.

For non-streaming messages, messages can be up to 2GB, and KXI_SG_BUFFER_RETAIN is how much heap space in bytes maximum will be shrunk back down after a message is sent. This allows tuning the application so "average" messages do not pay an overhead of memory re-allocation. KXI_SG_BUFFER_INITIAL is the how much space is reserved without any messages having come across, and is the minimum size in bytes that will be retained.

HTTP request size limit

The maximum size of an HTTP request to the gateway is 10MB.

Java memory and JAVA_OPTS

You can provide Java CLI arguments to the Service Gateway by setting the JAVA_OPTS environment variable.

When using the Helm chart for the Service Gateway, JAVA_OPTS is automatically set based on the container memory limits. If you override JAVA_OPS explicitly or if you’re not using Helm charts, you must explicitly set -Xms, -Xmx, and -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize.

-Xms provides Java with a minimum heap size it won't shrink below. Once memory used exceeds the value of -Xms, memory usage won't drop lower than that number.
-Xmx provides Java with a maximum heap size it won't grow beyond. Data is garbage collected before it crosses that point.
OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space is logged if an allocation runs out of heap space.
-XX:MaxDirectMemorySize sets the size that is used for native-off-heap DirectByteBuffer memory, and configures how large and how many I/O messages are temporarily stored and cached.
OutOfMemoryError: Direct buffer memory is logged if if an allocation runs out of direct memory space.
Direct memory is not garbage collected immediately when it's no longer in use. Instead, the application may attempt to re-use the space for future messages.

Direct byte buffer memory is used for I/O buffers, while the heap memory is used for all other purposes. Memory usage may temporarily exceed Xmx because some memory is off-heap. The sum of Xmx and XX:MaxDirectMemorySize should be less than the container memory limit.

-Xms is defaulted to 256Mb, unless it would be larger than the calculated value for -Xmx. In that case, -Xms is left undefined and the JVM decides.

If the container memory limit exceeds 256Mi, the system configures a 128Mi margin for reserved space. -Xmx and -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize are set to divide the remaining container memory limits equally into halves. This division mirrors the default tuning of the OpenJDK JVM, where by default, MaxDirectMemorySize of zero or undefined implies equal to maximum heap size.

If the container memory limit is less than 256Mi, the system doesn’t configure a margin and attempts to allocate all of the memory to the heap and MaxDirectMemorySize.

For more information on Java arguments and performance tuning, refer to the OpenJDK documentation for the java command.

The following example setting, gives a minimum heap size of 256m, a maximum of 1024m, and allows for 1g off heap. This setting is an illustrative example only, not a configuration suggestion.

JAVA_OPTS="-Xms256m -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize=1g"

Minimum idle memory usage"

With default configuration, you can expect the Service Gateway to idle at a memory usage somewhere between -Xms and the sum of -Xms and -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize.

For example, with a 2Gi limit, you can expect the Service Gateway to idle at memory usages between 256Mi to 256+1Gi=1.25Gi, which are roughly 12.5% to 62.5% of the limit quota in use.

If you find the minimum memory usage too high, try explicitly setting -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize to a lower value.

Resource Coordinator

name	description
`KXI_NAME`	Process name.
`KXI_PORT`	Port.
`KXI_GC_FREQ`	Frequency in milliseconds to run garbage collect in a timer (default: `600000`, set to `0` to disable).
`KXI_SG_TIMEOUT`	Default request timeout in milliseconds (default: `60000`).
`KXI_DISC`	Multi-RC discovery mode: `"kubernetes"` or `""`.
`KXI_RC_LABEL_SELECTOR`	Label selector to discover other RCs via Kubernetes-based discovery (default: `app.kubernetes.io/name=resource-coordinator`).
`KXI_RC_CONTAINER_NAME`	RC container name for Kubernetes-based discovery (default: `resource-coordinator`).
`KXI_SG_CONN_TIMEOUT`	Timeout on connection open.
`KXI_SG_MAX_RETRY`	Maximum number of retries the RC is willing to do for retry-able errors.
`KXI_ALLOWED_SBX_APIS`	Comma-delimited list of sandbox APIs to allow in non-sandbox RCs (e.g. `.kxi.sql,.kxi.qsql,.kxi.sql2`).
`KXI_SG_REQ_DEL_FREQ`	Time in milliseconds to run the request table delete routine (default: `10000`).
`KXI_SG_QUEUE_DEL_FREQ`	Time in milliseconds to run the queue table delete routine (default: `10000`).
`KXI_HB_FREQ`	Time in milliseconds to run the heartbeat to connected processes (default: `30000`).
`KXI_HB_TOL`	Number of heartbeat intervals a process can miss before being disconnected (default: `3`).
`KXI_SG_MULTI_RC_TO_MAX_WAIT`	On a timeout of a multi-RC request, number of 10 second iterations to wait for timeout details from all RCs (default: 1).
`KXI_ENABLE_FLUSH`	Set to `true` to enable async flush on messages from RC to DA/Agg and from Agg to GW (default `false`).
`KXI_SG_STREAM_THRESHOLD`	Threshold in bytes for the RC to use streaming APIs of the Service Gateway (default: 5MB as `5000000`).
`KXI_ALLOW_OLD_LABEL_STYLE`	Allows queries and APIs to continue to use the old label style prior to 1.5. See upgrading to 1.5 for details. (default: "false")
`KXI_RC_STS_SIZE`	Number of RCs in the stateful set when using Kubernetes-based discovery with DAPs and Aggs. See ordinal connections.
`KXI_ASSEMBLY_NAME`	Set in order for the RC to self-identify as an assembly RC. See routing.
`KXI_WARN_FREQ`	Frequency, in milliseconds, at which the RC issues a warning message if no DAPs or no aggregators are connected (default: `60000`, i.e. 1 minute).
`KXI_WARN_THRESHOLD`	If no DAPs or aggregators are connected, the RC begins generating error messages after this many warnings (default: 10).