Rate limiting in swift is implemented as a pluggable middleware. Rate limiting is performed on requests that result in database writes to the account and container sqlite dbs. It uses memcached and is dependent on the proxy servers having highly synchronized time. The rate limits are limited by the accuracy of the proxy server clocks.
All configuration is optional. If no account or container limits are provided there will be no rate limiting. Configuration available:
| Option | Default | Description |
| clock_accuracy | 1000 | Represents how accurate the proxy servers’ system clocks are with each other. 1000 means that all the proxies’ clock are accurate to each other within 1 millisecond. No ratelimit should be higher than the clock accuracy. |
| max_sleep_time_seconds | 60 | App will immediately return a 498 response if the necessary sleep time ever exceeds the given max_sleep_time_seconds. |
| log_sleep_time_seconds | 0 | To allow visibility into rate limiting set this value > 0 and all sleeps greater than the number will be logged. |
| rate_buffer_seconds | 5 | Number of seconds the rate counter can drop and be allowed to catch up (at a faster than listed rate). A larger number will result in larger spikes in rate but better average accuracy. |
| account_ratelimit | 0 | If set, will limit PUT and DELETE requests to /account_name/container_name. Number is in requests per second. |
| account_whitelist | ‘’ | Comma separated lists of account names that will not be rate limited. |
| account_blacklist | ‘’ | Comma separated lists of account names that will not be allowed. Returns a 497 response. |
| container_ratelimit_size | ‘’ | When set with container_limit_x = r: for containers of size x, limit requests per second to r. Will limit PUT, DELETE, and POST requests to /a/c/o. |
The container rate limits are linearly interpolated from the values given. A sample container rate limiting could be:
container_ratelimit_100 = 100
container_ratelimit_200 = 50
container_ratelimit_500 = 20
This would result in
| Container Size | Rate Limit |
| 0-99 | No limiting |
| 100 | 100 |
| 150 | 75 |
| 500 | 20 |
| 1000 | 20 |