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Server Config (Enterprise)

To enforce rate limiting, Envoy queries an external rate limit server. You can configure changes to the rate limit server as follows.

Configure rate limiting query behavior
Change the default database from an internal Redis deployment to an external Aerospike, DynamoDB, or Redis database
Debug the rate limit server

Configure Envoy rate limit query behavior

To achieve global rate limiting, Envoy queries an external server that is backed by Redis by default. You can configure the default query behavior as described in the following table.

Query behavior	Default value	How you can change the default
Timeout for the query	100ms	Change the timeout duration, such as to 200ms. `glooctl edit settings --name default --namespace gloo-system ratelimit --request-timeout=200ms`
Query failure behavior	Allow the request	Deny the request if the rate limit service cannot complete the query. `glooctl edit settings --name default --namespace gloo-system ratelimit --deny-on-failure=true`

Change the rate limit server’s backing database

By default, the rate limit server is backed by a Redis instance that Gloo Gateway deploys for you. Redis is a good choice for global rate limiting data storage because of its low latency. However, you might want to use a different database for the following reasons:

Rate limiting across multiple data centers
Replicating data for multiple replicas of the database
Using an existing database
Using a database that is external to the cluster, such as for data privacy concerns

Gloo Gateway supports the following external databases for the rate limit server:

DynamoDB
Redis

DynamoDB-backed rate limit server

You can use DynamoDB as the backing storage database for the Gloo Gateway rate limit server. DynamoDB is built for single-millisecond latencies. It includes features such as built-in replication (DynamoDB Global Tables) that can help you set up global rate limiting across multiple instances or multiple data centers.

You can use DynamoDB with Gloo Gateway Enterprise version 0.18.29 or later.

Create a secret in your cluster that includes your AWS credentials for the DynamoDB that you want to use. The secret must be in the same namespace as your Gloo installation, such as gloo-system. For more information, see the AWS docs.
```
glooctl create secret aws -n gloo-system --access-key <aws_access_key> --secret-key <aws_secret_key>
```
Install or upgrade your Gloo Gateway Enterprise Helm installation by completing the following steps:
1. Disable the default Redis server backing storage by setting rateLimit.enabled to false.
2. Provide the rate limiting DynamoDB Helm chart configuration options, as shown in the following table.

Option	Type	Description
rateLimit.deployment.dynamodb.secretName	string	Required: The name of the secret with the AWS credentials that you previously created. The secret must be in the same namespace as your Gloo installation, such as `gloo-system`.
rateLimit.deployment.dynamodb.region	string	The AWS region to run the DynamoDB requests in. The default region is `us-east-2`.
rateLimit.deployment.dynamodb.tableName	string	The name of the DynamoDB table that backs the rate limit service. The default name is `rate-limits`.
rateLimit.deployment.dynamodb.consistentReads	bool	If `true`, the reading response from DynamoDB is strongly consistent, or the most up-to-date data. The default value is `false`, or eventually consistent, which might be less accurate but also has lower latency and less chance of a 500 response than strongly consistent. For more information, see the DynamoDB docs.
rateLimit.deployment.dynamodb.batchSize	uint8	The batch size for `GET` requests to DynamoDB. The max value is `100`, which is also the default value.

As part of the rate limit service deployment, Gloo Gateway uses the provided AWS credentials to automatically create the rate limits DynamoDB table (default name rate-limits) in your AWS region (default us-east-2). If you want to turn the table into a globally replicated table, you can select the regions to replicate to in the DynamoDB AWS console UI.

Redis-backed rate limit server

You can use a clustered Redis instance as the backing storage database for the Gloo Gateway rate limit server. Redis is an open source, in-memory database with features such as data persistence, server-side scripting and Redis Functions, extensibility, and sharding for horizontal scalability, clustering for high availability. For more information, see the Redis docs.

Install a clustered Redis instance in your cluster. The following example uses a Helm chart and Redis version 6. You can use the following versions of Redis with Gloo Gateway.

Redis 6
Redis 7 in Gloo Gateway 1.13 or later

helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update
helm install redis -n redis bitnami/redis-cluster --set fullnameOverride=redis --set global.redis.password=redis --set image.tag=6.2.12-debian-11-r0 --version 8.1.1 --create-namespace

Create a secret with your Redis credentials in the same namespace as your Gloo Gateway installation, such as gloo-system. Make sure to encode your credentials in base64. For more information, see the Redis security docs.

kubectl apply -f - << EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: redis
  namespace: gloo-system
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: redis
type: Opaque
data:
  redis-password: <base64_password>
  users.acl: <base64_access-control-list>
EOF

Install or upgrade your Gloo Gateway Enterprise Helm installation by completing the following steps:

Disable the default Redis server backing storage by setting rateLimit.enabled to false.

Provide the rate limiting Redis Helm chart configuration options, as shown in the following table.

redis:
  disabled: true
  clustered: true
  service:
    name: "redis.redis.svc"
    port: 6379

Option	Type	Description
redis.disabled	bool	Set to `true` to disable a default Redis instance, so that you can bring your own clustered Redis.
redis.clustered	bool	Set to `true` to bring your own clustered Redis instance.
redis.service.name	string	The name of the service to use to access the Redis instance, such as the default `redis.redis.svc`.
redis.service.port	string	The port to access Redis on, which by default is `6379`.

Make sure that the rate limit server refers to the secret that you created. You can choose between the following options.
- Override the rate limit deployment Helm values to refer to the secret. For values, see the Helm reference docs.
- Restart the rate limit pods after creating the secret and re-installing with the clustered Redis instance.

Debug the rate limit server

Show the states from the Envoy proxy in your cluster.
```
glooctl proxy stats
```
In the output, check for rate limiting errors from stats that end in ratelimit.error.
Start the rate limiting server locally, such as with the following command.
```
kubectl port-forward -n gloo-system deploy/rate-limit 9091
```
Check the active configuration of the rate limiting server by opening the following localhost URL.
```
localhost:9091/rlconfig
```
For all administrative options, open the following localhost URL.
```
localhost:9091
```
Check the backing storage database of the rate limit server.
- Default Redis server: By default, the rate limit server uses Redis as an in-memory cache of the current rate limit counters with their associated timeouts. To check the current value of rate limit counters, inspect Redis.
  1. Start the Redis instance locally, such as with the following command.
```
kubectl port-forward -n gloo-system deploy/redis 6379
```
  2. Connect to the Redis instance, such as with the redis_cli tool.
  3. Query the Redis instance, such as the following.
    - scan 0 to list all the current counters.
    - get COUNTER to inspect the current value of a counter.
- DynamoDB: Refer to the DynamoDB docs, such as Query data or Common Errors.
- Aerospike: Refer to the Aerospike docs, such as Troubleshooting.