Rate Enforcement Dashboard

Use the Rate Enforcement dashboard to identify when a rate limit enforcement event took place. For the purposes of this dashboard, an event occurs when your rate limit’s threshold has been exceeded.

Sample Scenario #

The Rate Enforcement dashboard will log a single event whenever your rate limit threshold is exceeded. This occurs regardless of the number of requests that end up being rate limited as a result of this enforcement.

In this example, you have configured a rate limit of 300 requests per minute with an enforcement duration of 1 minute. Assuming the traffic pattern described below, the Rate Enforcement dashboard will indicate that 4 events took place.

Time	# of Requests
12:01	300,000
12:03	1,000,000
12:05	800,000
12:07	400,000

Overview #

The Rate Enforcement dashboard allows you to:

• Visualize the time periods during which a high volume of requests resulted in the enforcement of a rate rule.
• Understand the frequency of rate limited requests.

Usage #

The dashboard contains two different views through which rate limit analysis may be performed, which are:

• Overview
• Event log

To view the Rate Enforcement dashboard

1. Navigate to the Rate Enforcement dashboard (Rate Enforcement tab of the Overview page).

   1. From the Edgio Developer console, select the desired team space.
   2. From the Security section, click Overview.
   3. Click Rate Enforcement.

   The dashboard will display a chart showing recent enforcements of your security policy.

2. Optional. View event log data by clicking Event Logs from the navigation pane. Verify that the Rate Enforcement tab is selected.

Overview #

The Overview is a useful tool for detecting patterns for rate limited traffic directed to your origin servers. This view consists of a chart and statistics for a given time period.

Chart #

A chart or line graph displays the number of times that enforcement of your rate limit rate limit was initiated over a given time period.

By default, a single line on the graph represents all rate limit enforcement events. Alternatively, categorize enforcement events by selecting the desired categorization criteria from the option that appears directly above the graph. A line will be drawn on the chart for each unique value.

Key information:

• By default, the chart includes all enforcements that occurred within the last seven days.
  • The chart may be filtered by the criteria listed directly below it.
  • The time period being charted may be adjusted through the Time Range option. This option is displayed directly to the left of the chart.
• Hovering over the line graph will indicate the number of rate limited requests that took place during that time slot.

Statistics #

Statistics for the enforcement of your rate limits over a given time period are displayed directly below the chart. Statistics are broken down by category.

View a brief description for each category.

The following information is displayed for each category:

• <Value>: Groups rate limited traffic by a specific value (e.g., rule name or enforcement type).
• Percentage (%): Indicates the percentage of triggered enforcements over a given time period for the current group.
• Events: Indicates the number of triggered enforcements over a given time period for the current group.

Event Log View #

This view provides the means to delve into the details of rate limit enforcement. Each enforcement event is described as follows:

Enforced Rule: <Rule> <Elapsed Time> <Time>

Action Type: <Action Type>

The above terms are defined as follows:

• <Rule>: Identifies the rate rule that was violated by its name.
• <Elapsed Time>: Indicates the amount of time that has passed since the request was screened.
• <Time>: Indicates the time (UTC) at which the request was screened.
• <Action Type>: Represents the type of action that was applied to the rate limited request. This action is determined by the rate rule that it violated.

A sample rule violation is provided below.

Enforced Rule: Drop Traffic [10s ago 12:00:00.00 UTC]

Action Type: drop-request

Clicking on an event will expand that entry and display detailed information about it.

View a brief description for each event log entry field.

Key information:

• Blue font indicates a value that may be used to filter the entire dashboard. Click on that value to filter events by it.
• The (filter) icon appears next to each field that is currently filtering the dashboard.

Filters #

Filters are applied to both the Overview and the Event Log views. Most fields support filtering.

Key information:

• Quickly apply a filter by clicking on the desired entry. After which, the (filter) icon will be displayed next to it. This icon indicates that the dashboard is being filtered by that entry.
  • Overview: Quickly filter log event data by clicking on one of the values listed directly below the chart.
  • Event Log: Quickly filter log event data by expanding a log entry and then clicking on the desired field value.
• The Time Range option is different from other filters in that it is mandatory. Specify the relative time period from the present by which the Overview and the Event Log will be filtered.
• The list of active filters, including time, is displayed on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
• Clear a filter by clicking on the (filter) icon displayed next to it.

Fields #

A brief description for each field used to describe/categorize rate limiting enforcement is provided below.

A brief description for each field used to describe/categorize rate limited requests is provided below.

• Action Name: Indicates the name of the action that was applied to rate limited requests as a result of this enforcement event.

  Assign names to actions by defining your rate rule via our REST API.

• Action Type: Indicates the type of action (e.g., custom-response) that was applied to rate limited requests as a result of this enforcement event.

• Rule Name: Indicates the name of the rule whose threshold was exceeded.

• Timestamp: Indicates the date and time (UTC) at which rate limiting enforcement was initiated.

  This field is only available from within the Event Log view. Requests may not be filtered by this field. Filter by time through the Time Range option that appears on the left-hand side of the dashboard.