Configure Advisory Deletion
The default config file sets rippled
to automatically delete outdated history of XRP Ledger state and transactions as new ledger versions become available. If your server uses most of its hardware resources during peak hours, you can configure the server to delete ledgers only when prompted by a command scheduled to run during off-peak hours, so that online deletion is less likely to impact server performance.
Prerequisites
This tutorial assumes your server meets the following prerequisites:
You are on a supported operating system: Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), or CentOS.
The
rippled
server is already installed and online deletion is enabled.The default config file enables online deletion after 2000 ledger versions.
A
cron
daemon is installed and running.Ubuntu Linux runs a
cron
daemon by default.On RHEL or CentOS, you can install the
cronie
package:$ sudo yum install cronie
Your server has enough disk space to store your chosen amount of history in its ledger store.
See Capacity Planning for details of how much storage is required for different configurations. With advisory deletion enabled, the maximum history a server may accumulate before deletion is equal to the number of ledger versions configured in the
online_delete
setting plus the amount of time between online deletion prompts.You know which hours are least busy for your server.
Configuration Steps
To configure advisory deletion with a daily schedule, perform the following steps:
Enable
advisory_delete
in the[node_db]
stanza of yourrippled
's config file.[node_db] # Other settings unchanged ... online_delete=300000 advisory_delete=1
- Set
advisory_delete
to1
to run online deletion only when prompted. (Set it to0
to run online deletion automatically as new ledger versions become available.) - Set
online_delete
to the minimum number of ledger versions to keep after running online deletion. The server accumulates more history than this until online deletion runs.
The recommended installation uses the config file
/etc/opt/ripple/rippled.cfg
by default. Other places you can put a config file include$HOME/.config/ripple/rippled.cfg
(where$HOME
is the home directory of the user runningrippled
),$HOME/.local/ripple/rippled.cfg
, or the current working directory from where you startrippled
.- Set
Test running the can_delete method to prompt the server to run online deletion.
You can use the
rippled
commandline interface to run this command. For example:$ rippled --conf=/etc/opt/ripple/rippled.cfg can_delete now
The response indicates the maximum ledger index that the server may delete from its ledger store. For example, the following message indicates that ledger versions up to and including ledger index 43633667 can be deleted:
{ "result": { "can_delete": 43633667, "status": "success" } }
The server only deletes those ledger versions if the number of newer validated ledger versions it has is equal to or greater than the
online_delete
setting.Configure your
cron
daemon to run thecan_delete
method you tested in the previous step at a scheduled time.Edit your
cron
configuration:$ crontab -e
The following example sets the server to run deletion at 1:05 AM server time daily:
5 1 * * * rippled --conf /etc/opt/ripple/rippled.cfg can_delete now
Be sure that you schedule the command to run based on your server's configured time zone.
Tip: You do not need to schedule a
cron
job to run online deletion if you haveadvisory_delete
disabled. In that case,rippled
runs online deletion automatically when the difference between the server's oldest and current validated ledger versions is at least the value ofonline_delete
.Start (or restart) the
rippled
service.$ sudo systemctl restart rippled
Periodically check your server's
complete_ledgers
range using the server_info method to confirm that ledgers are being deleted as scheduled.The lowest ledger index in
complete_ledgers
should increase after online deletion.Deletion may take several minutes to complete when it runs, depending on how busy your server is and how much history you delete at a time.
Troubleshooting
If online deletion does not seem to be running after configuring it, try the following:
- Check that the user who configured the
cron
job has permissions to run therippled
server as a commandline client. - Check the syntax of your
cron
job and the time when it is supposed to run. - Check that the
rippled
executable is available at the path specified in yourcron
configuration. If necessary, specify the absolute path to the executable, such as/opt/ripple/bin/rippled
. - Check your
rippled
logs for messages that begin withSHAMapStore::WRN
. This can indicate that online deletion is being interrupted because your server fell out of sync with the network.