Resource Isolation

Resource Isolation, Query Queue, and Query Governance

Investigation guide for resource groups, query queues, big-query circuit breakers, and SQL blacklisting.

Five root causes account for most resource isolation issues:

• Cause A — Unclassified queries monopolize resources (fall into default_wg)
• Cause B — Memory limit too tight causing disk spill and IO contention
• Cause C — Queue full causing immediate rejection (misleading error to client)
• Cause D — Big query unbounded for a specific user (no big_query_* limits set)
• Cause E — Statistics collection saturating BRPC worker threads

Metric Taxonomy — Read This First

Before diagnosing, understand the observable signals for resource isolation issues.

FE metrics

How to retrieve:

# All resource group metrics from FE
curl -s "http://<fe_host>:8030/metrics?type=json" \
  | python3 -m json.tool \
  | grep -A 5 "resource_group"

# Or raw metrics
curl -s "http://<fe_host>:8030/metrics" | grep resource_group

BE metrics

How to retrieve:

# BE resource group metrics
curl -s "http://<be_host>:8040/metrics" | grep resource_group

# Loop across all BEs
for be in <be1> <be2> <be3>; do
    echo "=== $be ==="
    curl -s "http://$be:8040/metrics" | grep resource_group
done

Query queue metrics

How to retrieve:

# Check queue configuration
mysql -e "ADMIN SHOW FRONTEND CONFIG LIKE 'query_queue%';"

# Check queue depth in FE metrics
curl -s "http://<fe_host>:8030/metrics" | grep query_queue

# Check if queries are being queued or rejected
grep -E "queue is full|admitted to queue|query rejected" fe/log/fe.log | tail -20

Audit log signals

How to retrieve:

# Queries assigned to default_wg (unclassified)
grep "resource_group=default_wg" fe/log/fe.audit.log | wc -l

# CPU cost per user (for cpu_core_limit tuning)
awk -F'|' '{
    for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) {
        if($i ~ /^User=/) user=substr($i,6)
        if($i ~ /^cpuCostNs=/) cpu=substr($i,12)+0
    }
    print user, cpu
}' fe/log/fe.audit.log | awk '{a[$1]+=$2} END{for(u in a) print a[u]/1e9, u}' | sort -rn | head -10

# Memory outliers
grep "memCostBytes" fe/log/fe.audit.log \
  | awk -F'memCostBytes=' '{print $2}' | cut -d'|' -f1 | sort -rn | head -10

Key rules for interpretation:

1. CPU limit in resource groups is soft (proportional sharing when contended); memory limit is hard (query fails immediately when exceeded). Tune memory limits conservatively to avoid false kills.
2. Queries classified into default_wg have no effective CPU or memory limits — default_wg cannot be altered. If queries fall here, add a classifier.
3. starrocks_fe_query_resource_group_err counts both hard memory kills and queue rejections — drill into FE log to distinguish.
4. Resource group settings are per-BE — mem_limit = 30% means 30% of each individual BE's memory, not 30% of the cluster total.

Resource Isolation Issue Reference

Phase 1 — Identify the Issue

Step 1.1 — Check query classification

-- Are queries being classified into resource groups?
-- Check a running query's resource group:
EXPLAIN VERBOSE <SQL>;
-- Look for: ResourceGroup: <group_name>

-- Set resource group for current session (for testing):
SET resource_group = '<group_name>';

# What fraction of queries go to default_wg (unclassified)?
grep "resource_group=default_wg" fe/log/fe.audit.log | wc -l
grep "resource_group=" fe/log/fe.audit.log | wc -l
# High ratio → Cause A

Step 1.2 — Check for memory limit kills and queue rejections

# Memory limit exceeded errors
grep -E "Memory limit exceeded|MemTracker exceed" be/log/be.log | tail -10
# → Cause B

# Queue full rejections
grep -E "queue is full|query rejected" fe/log/fe.log | tail -10
# → Cause C

# Unbounded big queries (no circuit breaker fired)
grep "$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" fe/log/fe.audit.log \
  | awk -F'QueryTime=' 'NF>1{qt=$2+0; if(qt>600000) print}' | tail -10
# QueryTime > 600s → Cause D

Step 1.3 — Check statistics collection saturation

# Statistics-related BRPC errors
grep -E "rpc.*statistic|statistic.*rpc|brpc.*fail" fe/log/fe.log | tail -10
# → Cause E

Issue signal → Cause mapping:

Phase 2 — Measure Current State

Step 2.1 — List all resource groups and their configuration

SHOW RESOURCE GROUPS ALL;
-- Key fields: cpu_core_limit, mem_limit, concurrency_limit
-- big_query_cpu_second_limit, big_query_scan_rows_limit, big_query_mem_limit

Step 2.2 — Measure actual resource usage from audit log

-- CPU usage per user (last 30 days) — for cpu_core_limit tuning
SELECT user, SUM(cpuCostNs)/1e9 AS cpu_sec
FROM starrocks_audit_db__.starrocks_audit_tbl__
WHERE state IN ('EOF','OK')
  AND timestamp >= now() - INTERVAL 30 DAY
GROUP BY user
ORDER BY cpu_sec DESC;

-- Memory P99 per user — for big_query_mem_limit tuning
SELECT user, percentile_approx(memCostBytes, 0.99) AS mem_p99
FROM starrocks_audit_db__.starrocks_audit_tbl__
WHERE state IN ('EOF','OK')
GROUP BY user
ORDER BY mem_p99 DESC;

-- Query time P99 per user — for big_query_cpu_second_limit tuning
SELECT user, percentile_approx(queryTime, 0.99)/1000 AS time_p99_sec
FROM starrocks_audit_db__.starrocks_audit_tbl__
WHERE state IN ('EOF','OK')
GROUP BY user
ORDER BY time_p99_sec DESC;

Phase 3 — Take Action by Cause

Cause A — Unclassified Queries Monopolize Resources

Confirm all match:

• High fraction of queries in fe.audit.log show resource_group=default_wg
• SHOW PROC '/current_queries' shows queries with no resource group or default_wg
• Small queries starve when large queries run

Mechanism: Queries that match no classifier are assigned to default_wg, which has no configurable CPU or memory limits. A single large analytical query in default_wg consumes all available BE CPU and memory, starving smaller concurrent queries. default_wg cannot be modified — the fix is to create classifiers that capture all query patterns.

Actions:

-- Step A-1: Create resource groups for each user type
CREATE RESOURCE GROUP rg_bi
TO (user='bi_user', role='bi_role')
PROPERTIES (
    "cpu_core_limit" = "10",
    "mem_limit" = "30%",
    "concurrency_limit" = "10",
    "big_query_cpu_second_limit" = "600",
    "big_query_scan_rows_limit" = "1000000000",
    "big_query_mem_limit" = "10737418240"
);

CREATE RESOURCE GROUP rg_etl
TO (user='etl_user')
PROPERTIES (
    "cpu_core_limit" = "16",
    "mem_limit" = "40%",
    "concurrency_limit" = "5"
);

-- Step A-2: Create a catch-all group to prevent default_wg fallback
CREATE RESOURCE GROUP rg_default_catch
TO ()  -- matches all unmatched queries
PROPERTIES (
    "cpu_core_limit" = "4",
    "mem_limit" = "20%",
    "concurrency_limit" = "20"
);

-- Step A-3: Verify classification is working
-- Run a query and check EXPLAIN VERBOSE for ResourceGroup field
EXPLAIN VERBOSE SELECT COUNT(*) FROM <table>;

→ Go to Phase 4: Verify Recovery

Cause B — Memory Limit Too Tight Causing Disk Spill

Confirm all match:

• BE log shows query spill to disk or MemTracker exceed limit
• Disk await time high on BE hosts during affected queries
• Spill directory is on the same disk as data storage

Mechanism: Resource group memory limits are hard limits — when a query's operator (sort buffer, hash table) exceeds the group's mem_limit, it spills intermediate data to disk. If the spill directory shares a disk with tablet data storage, compaction, and scan operations, IO contention degrades all queries on that BE. Multiple concurrent spilling queries compound the effect.

Actions:

# Step B-1: Identify current mem_limit vs actual P99 usage
# (Use audit log query from Phase 2 Step 2.2)

# Step B-2: Configure dedicated spill directory on separate disk
# In be.conf:
# spill_local_storage_dir = /data/spill/starrocks
mkdir -p /data/spill/starrocks
echo "spill_local_storage_dir = /data/spill/starrocks" >> be/conf/be.conf
# Requires BE restart

-- Step B-3: Increase mem_limit based on P99 usage (set to 1.5x P99)
ALTER RESOURCE GROUP rg_bi SET PROPERTIES (
    "mem_limit" = "45%"
);

-- Step B-4: Set big_query_mem_limit as circuit breaker (2x P99)
ALTER RESOURCE GROUP rg_bi SET PROPERTIES (
    "big_query_mem_limit" = "21474836480"  -- 20GB
);

→ Go to Phase 4: Verify Recovery

Cause C — Queue Full Causing Immediate Rejection

Confirm all match:

• FE log shows query rejected: queue is full
• Client receives immediate connection error (not after a wait timeout)
• query_queue_max_queued_queries is reached during burst traffic

Mechanism: When a resource group reaches concurrency_limit, subsequent queries enter the queue. When query_queue_max_queued_queries is reached, additional queries are rejected immediately with an error — not after a timeout. Clients without retry logic interpret this as a cluster crash rather than resource exhaustion. The error message may appear as a generic connection error at the application layer.

Actions:

# Step C-1: Confirm queue full is the rejection cause
grep "queue is full" fe/log/fe.log | tail -10

# Step C-2: Check current queue configuration
mysql -e "ADMIN SHOW FRONTEND CONFIG LIKE 'query_queue%';"

-- Step C-3: Increase queue capacity to absorb bursts
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("query_queue_max_queued_queries" = "2000");

-- Step C-4: Increase concurrency limit based on actual peak concurrency
-- (Use audit log P99 concurrency per user from Phase 2)
ALTER RESOURCE GROUP rg_bi SET PROPERTIES (
    "concurrency_limit" = "20"  -- 1.5x of observed P99 peak
);

-- Step C-5: Disable queue for privileged users (e.g., ETL jobs)
ALTER USER 'etl_user' SET PROPERTIES ("session.enable_query_queue" = "false");

-- Step C-6: Set queue wait timeout so clients get a clear timeout error
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("query_queue_pending_timeout_second" = "300");

→ Go to Phase 4: Verify Recovery

Cause D — Big Query Unbounded for a User

Confirm all match:

• Audit log shows queries from specific user with QueryTime >5 minutes
• SHOW RESOURCE GROUPS shows no big_query_cpu_second_limit / big_query_mem_limit for that user's group
• Memory usage rises over time without any circuit breaker firing

Mechanism: Resource groups without big_query_* limits allow individual queries to run indefinitely, consuming arbitrary CPU time and memory. Session-level overrides (e.g., query_timeout = 86400) make this worse. Without circuit breakers at the resource group level, the only protection is the BE OOM killer — which is too late and affects all queries on the same node.

Actions:

-- Step D-1: Kill the currently offending query immediately
SHOW PROC '/current_queries';
-- Find: ElapsedTime > expected maximum
KILL QUERY <query_id>;

-- Step D-2: Add big_query limits to the resource group
ALTER RESOURCE GROUP rg_bi SET PROPERTIES (
    "big_query_cpu_second_limit" = "600",      -- 10 minutes CPU time
    "big_query_scan_rows_limit" = "1000000000", -- 1B rows
    "big_query_mem_limit" = "10737418240"       -- 10GB
);

-- Step D-3: Add SQL blacklist for dangerous patterns
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("enable_sql_blacklist" = "true");
-- Block SELECT without WHERE on large tables:
ADD SQLBLACKLIST "select .* from big_table[^w]*;";
SHOW SQLBLACKLIST;

-- Step D-4: Audit-based tuning for big_query_* limits
-- Set limits to 2x of the P99 from audit log (see Phase 2 queries)

→ Go to Phase 4: Verify Recovery

Cause E — Statistics Collection Saturating BRPC

Confirm all match:

• FE log shows BRPC failures correlated with statistics collection schedule
• Query latency degrades during statistics collection windows
• case-002-rpc-failed-statistics pattern matches

Mechanism: StarRocks statistics collection runs ANALYZE TABLE jobs across all tables, generating many parallel RPC calls through the BRPC thread pool. When the pool is saturated, other internal RPCs (query coordination, heartbeat) queue behind statistics RPCs. This manifests as general query degradation or timeout failures that appear unrelated to statistics collection.

Actions:

-- Step E-1: Disable statistics collection immediately (emergency)
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("enable_statistic_collect" = "false");
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("enable_statistic_collect_on_first_load" = "false");
SET GLOBAL analyze_mv = "";  -- v3.3+

-- Step E-2: Verify query latency recovers
-- Wait 2-3 minutes; check SHOW PROC '/current_queries' for improvement

-- Step E-3: Re-enable with reduced concurrency (scheduled off-peak)
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("enable_statistic_collect" = "true");
ADMIN SET FRONTEND CONFIG ("statistic_collect_concurrency" = "1");  -- default 3

-- Step E-4: Schedule statistics collection during off-peak windows
-- Use ANALYZE TABLE ... WITH ASYNC during low-traffic hours

→ Go to Phase 4: Verify Recovery

Phase 4 — Verify Recovery

-- Verify queries are classified (not in default_wg)
-- Check audit log for resource_group field after fix
-- Or run a test query and verify:
EXPLAIN VERBOSE SELECT COUNT(*) FROM <table>;
-- Should show ResourceGroup: <your_group>, not default_wg

-- Verify resource group limits are applied
SHOW RESOURCE GROUPS;
-- Confirm big_query_* limits are set for all user groups

-- Verify queue is not full
-- Run: ADMIN SHOW FRONTEND CONFIG LIKE 'query_queue%';
-- Current queue depth should be far below max_queued_queries

# Verify no memory limit exceeded errors
grep "Memory limit exceeded" be/log/be.log | tail -5
# Should be empty or from before the fix

# Verify no queue rejections in FE log
grep "queue is full" fe/log/fe.log | tail -5
# Should be empty or from before the fix

# Verify FE resource group metrics show healthy distribution
curl -s "http://<fe_host>:8030/metrics" | grep "starrocks_fe_query_resource_group_err"
# Error counts should be 0 or decreasing

-- Run a representative big query and verify circuit breaker fires (Cause D fix)
-- The query should be killed after big_query_cpu_second_limit seconds
-- Check: FE log shows "big query killed" for the test query

Resource Isolation Config Parameters

Causal Chains

Chain 1: Unclassified Query Monopolizes BE Resources → Small Queries Starve

Large analytical query submitted without resource group assignment
  ↓ observable: SHOW PROC '/current_queries' shows query with no resource_group field or assigned to default_wg
Query consumes all available BE CPU threads and memory (no admission control)
  ↓ observable: BE metrics show CPU utilization near 100%; starrocks_be_resource_group_mem_limit_bytes for default_wg has no effective cap
Concurrent small OLTP queries cannot acquire CPU slots or memory
  ↓ observable: SHOW PROC '/current_queries' shows small queries in RUNNING state with abnormally high elapsed time
Small query latency spikes; P99 rises from milliseconds to seconds
  ↓ observable: application latency dashboards show sudden spike correlated with large query start

Interactive queries become unusable during analytical query execution; users report random slowness.

Trigger conditions: Resource groups not configured or classifiers not covering all query types; default_wg has no CPU/memory limits.

Break point: Define resource groups with explicit cpu_core_limit and mem_limit; create classifiers to route large analytical queries to a dedicated group with lower priority; set limits on default_wg as safety net.

Chain 2: Tight Resource Group Mem Limit → Disk Spill → IO Contention → Collateral Slowdown

Query assigned to resource group with conservatively set mem_limit (e.g., 2GB)
  ↓ observable: SHOW RESOURCE GROUPS shows mem_limit for the group; query involves sort/hash join exceeding that limit
Intermediate data (sort buffer, hash table) exceeds per-group memory limit
  ↓ observable: BE log "query spill to disk" or "MemTracker exceed limit"; spill directory write IO begins
Disk I/O for spill competes with compaction and tablet operations
  ↓ observable: BE disk throughput metrics show spike; disk latency increases for all I/O on that host
Other queries on same BE experience elevated scan latency due to IO contention
  ↓ observable: SHOW PROC '/current_queries' shows unrelated queries with increased ScanTime; BE disk await time rises

Spilling query completes slowly; collateral damage degrades all queries on same BE.

Trigger conditions: mem_limit set without accounting for operator memory peaks; spill disk shared with data storage; concurrent spill from multiple queries.

Break point: Increase resource group mem_limit to accommodate peak operator memory; configure dedicated spill directory on separate disk (spill_local_storage_dir).

Chain 3: Query Queue Full → Immediate Rejection → Misleading Client Error

Resource group reaches max_concurrency; queue enabled with finite max_queue_size
  ↓ observable: FE log shows queries being admitted to queue; information_schema.resource_groups_load_history shows concurrency at limit
Burst of new queries arrives; queue fills to max_queue_size
  ↓ observable: FE log "query rejected: queue is full" for incoming queries beyond capacity
New queries beyond queue capacity rejected immediately with error
  ↓ observable: client receives connection error or SQL exception immediately, not after a wait timeout
Client application interprets immediate rejection as connectivity/crash event, not resource exhaustion
  ↓ observable: application error logs show "connection refused" instead of timeout; no retry logic triggered

Users and operators see what appears to be a crash event; root cause (queue full) obscured by immediate error.

Trigger conditions: max_queue_size too small relative to burst traffic; max_concurrency per group too low; no client-side retry logic for resource rejection errors.

Break point: Increase max_queue_size to absorb burst; tune max_concurrency based on information_schema.resource_groups_load_history peak usage; implement client-side retry with backoff.

Related Cases

• case-002-rpc-failed-statistics — statistics collection saturating brpc; emergency disable pattern
• case-015-memory-volatility — governance gap allowing session-level timeout override

Resources

• Resource Isolation FAQ

Source: StarRocks/starrocks-debug-skills — distributed by TomeVault.