[SOLVED] How to handle time unit and step while ingesting or querying in VictoriaMetrics?

Issue

As a beginner, I tried example-like commands on official docs with a victoria-metrics in docker container.

While I try to write and read to verify whether my operation succeeded, I found it curious: I can only write with mil-sec time unit, while I can only query with second time unit.

How could it be possible that I need to handle different time unit for ingest and query ? DId I miss any detail about using step in a decent way?

Any helo would be sincerely appreciated.

Commands I tried:

// try 1: write with mil-sec
// write
curl -d '{"metric":{"__name__":"zoo2","job":"node_exporter"},"values":[0,1,2],"timestamps":[1686207845001,1686207846002,1686207848003]}' -X POST 'http://localhost:8428/api/v1/import'

// no
curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo2&start=1686207845000&end=1686207850000&step=1"
// yes
curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo2&start=1686207845&end=1686207850&step=1"


// try 2: write with sec
curl -d '{"metric":{"__name__":"zoo3","job":"node_exporter"},"values":[0,1,2],"timestamps":[1686207845,1686207846,1686207848]}' -X POST 'http://localhost:8428/api/v1/import'

// no
curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo3&start=1686207845000&end=1686207850000&step=1"
// no, either
curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo3&start=1686207845&end=1686207850&step=1"

Solution

That's the wrong format for specifying milliseconds - see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#timestamp-formats. Try the following:

curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo2&start=1686207845.000&end=168620785.000&step=1"

I've added PR to make units format more clear in docs - https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/4428/files

Update: VictoriaMetrics supports specifying timestamps in milliseconds in start, end and time query args starting from v1.92.0. For example, the following query is equivalent to the query above starting from v1.92.0:

curl "http://localhost:8428/api/v1/query_range?query=zoo2&start=1686207845000&end=168620785000&step=1"

Answered By - hagen1778

Answer Checked By - Senaida (WPSolving Volunteer)