kubo/docs/environment-variables.md
Hector Sanjuan 4255cc3889
feat: telemetry plugin (#10866)
* Initial pass at Telemetry plugin

Currently, IP Shipyard, with the help of Probelab, monitor and extract
Amino/IPFS public network metrics with the use of DHT crawlers and
bootstrappers (via peerlog plugin). For example, we log all peer IDs seen and
their AgentVersion/Addresses obtained from the `identify` protocol, which
provides insights into protocol usage, total number of peers etc.

We would like to increase the ability to obtain more insights from the network
by collecting some more information in the future, but also to give users more
control over this collection (i.e. opt-out). The information collected will
not allow unique identification of anyone and is only used for aggregation.

Now, this PR explores a way of moving in this direction:

* A new "telemetry" fx plugin is in charge of dealing with telemetry
* The FX plugin allows to plug and make decisions / take actions during the setup phase:
  * We can inspect whether we are using Private Networks before the libp2p.Host has been initialized.
  * We can send telemetry after the libp2p Host is initialized.
  * Everything is self-contained. Custom builds can remove the plugin altogether without needing to surgically edit the code.

As for behaviour:

* The user can opt-in/out via EnvVar, file in the repo path or plugin configuration.
* Users on private networks or with custom bootstrappers are detected, offered a wall of text explaining why we need telemetry and invited to opt-in. Opt-out happens otherwise on a timeout (with no input). Their preferences are stored.
* Users on standard settings are opted-in by default. This is the status quo in Kubo already, except they don't get a chance to opt out.

The telemetry libp2p protocol is yet to be defined, but expect something similar to identify, with a protobuf being pushed to bootstrappers or to a specific telemetry node that we define. In the case of pnets, this will be done with a temporary peer.

* checkpoint

* telemetry plugin: second pass

* On first run it generates a UUID and shows a message to the user.
* UUID is persistend to "telemetry_uuid"
* Sends telemetry 1 minute after boot and every 24h
* LogEvent is the thing containing all the telemetry that is sent
* Opt-out possible via env-var or plugin configuration

* Telemetry: add changelog and environment variable documentation

* docs: improved daemon message

making it more obvious nothing was sent yet
and that user had 15m to out-out

plus some debug logs that confirm opt-out

* refactor: rename IPFS_TELEMETRY_MODE to IPFS_TELEMETRY

* fix: add User-Agent header to telemetry requests

---------

Co-authored-by: Andrew Gillis <11790789+gammazero@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Marcin Rataj <lidel@lidel.org>
2025-08-18 20:46:05 +02:00

8.1 KiB

Kubo environment variables

Variables

IPFS_PATH

Sets the location of the IPFS repo (where the config, blocks, etc. are stored).

Default: ~/.ipfs

IPFS_LOGGING

Specifies the log level for Kubo.

IPFS_LOGGING is a deprecated alias for the GOLOG_LOG_LEVEL environment variable. See below.

IPFS_LOGGING_FMT

Specifies the log message format.

IPFS_LOGGING_FMT is a deprecated alias for the GOLOG_LOG_FMT environment variable. See below.

GOLOG_LOG_LEVEL

Specifies the log-level, both globally and on a per-subsystem basis. Level can be one of:

  • debug
  • info
  • warn
  • error
  • dpanic
  • panic
  • fatal

Per-subsystem levels can be specified with subsystem=level. One global level and one or more per-subsystem levels can be specified by separating them with commas.

Default: error

Example:

GOLOG_LOG_LEVEL="error,core/server=debug" ipfs daemon

Logging can also be configured at runtime, both globally and on a per-subsystem basis, with the ipfs log command.

GOLOG_LOG_FMT

Specifies the log message format. It supports the following values:

  • color -- human readable, colorized (ANSI) output
  • nocolor -- human readable, plain-text output.
  • json -- structured JSON.

For example, to log structured JSON (for easier parsing):

export GOLOG_LOG_FMT="json"

The logging format defaults to color when the output is a terminal, and nocolor otherwise.

GOLOG_FILE

Sets the file to which Kubo logs. By default, Kubo logs to standard error.

GOLOG_OUTPUT

When stderr and/or stdout options are configured or specified by the GOLOG_OUTPUT environ variable, log only to the output(s) specified. For example:

  • GOLOG_OUTPUT="stderr" logs only to stderr
  • GOLOG_OUTPUT="stdout" logs only to stdout
  • GOLOG_OUTPUT="stderr+stdout" logs to both stderr and stdout

GOLOG_TRACING_FILE

Sets the file to which Kubo sends tracing events. By default, tracing is disabled.

This log can be read at runtime (without writing it to a file) using the ipfs log tail command.

Warning: Enabling tracing will likely affect performance.

IPFS_FUSE_DEBUG

If SET, enables fuse debug logging.

Default: false

YAMUX_DEBUG

If SET, enables debug logging for the yamux stream muxer.

Default: false

IPFS_FD_MAX

Sets the file descriptor limit for Kubo. If Kubo fails to set the file descriptor limit, it will log an error.

Defaults: 2048

IPFS_DIST_PATH

IPFS Content Path from which Kubo fetches repo migrations (when the daemon is launched with the --migrate flag).

Default: /ipfs/<cid> (the exact path is hardcoded in migrations.CurrentIpfsDist, depends on the IPFS version)

IPFS_NS_MAP

Adds static namesys records for deterministic tests and debugging. Useful for testing things like DNSLink without real DNS lookup.

Example:

$ IPFS_NS_MAP="dnslink-test1.example.com:/ipfs/bafkreicysg23kiwv34eg2d7qweipxwosdo2py4ldv42nbauguluen5v6am,dnslink-test2.example.com:/ipns/dnslink-test1.example.com" ipfs daemon
...
$ ipfs resolve -r /ipns/dnslink-test2.example.com
/ipfs/bafkreicysg23kiwv34eg2d7qweipxwosdo2py4ldv42nbauguluen5v6am

IPFS_HTTP_ROUTERS

Overrides all implicit HTTP routers enabled when Routing.Type=auto with the space-separated list of URLs provided in this variable. Useful for testing and debugging in offline contexts.

Example:

$ ipfs config Routing.Type auto
$ IPFS_HTTP_ROUTERS="http://127.0.0.1:7423" ipfs daemon

The above will replace implicit HTTP routers with single one, allowing for inspection/debug of HTTP requests sent by Kubo via while true ; do nc -l 7423; done or more advanced tools like mitmproxy.

Default: config.DefaultHTTPRouters

IPFS_HTTP_ROUTERS_FILTER_PROTOCOLS

Overrides values passed with filter-protocols parameter defined in IPIP-484. Value is space-separated.

$ IPFS_HTTP_ROUTERS_FILTER_PROTOCOLS="unknown transport-bitswap transport-foo" ipfs daemon

Default: config.DefaultHTTPRoutersFilterProtocols

IPFS_CONTENT_BLOCKING_DISABLE

Disables the content-blocking subsystem. No denylists will be watched and no content will be blocked.

IPFS_WAIT_REPO_LOCK

Specifies the amount of time to wait for the repo lock. Set the value of this variable to a string that can be parsed as a golang time.Duration. For example:

IPFS_WAIT_REPO_LOCK="15s"

If the lock cannot be acquired because someone else has the lock, and IPFS_WAIT_REPO_LOCK is set to a valid value, then acquiring the lock is retried every second until the lock is acquired or the specified wait time has elapsed.

IPFS_TELEMETRY

Controls the behavior of the telemetry plugin. Valid values are:

  • on: Enables telemetry.
  • off: Disables telemetry.
  • auto: Like on, but logs an informative message about telemetry and gives user 15 minutes to opt-out before first collection. Used automatically on first run and when IPFS_TELEMETRY is not set.

The mode can also be set in the config file under Plugins.Plugins.telemetry.Config.Mode.

Example:

export IPFS_TELEMETRY="off"

LIBP2P_TCP_REUSEPORT

Kubo tries to reuse the same source port for all connections to improve NAT traversal. If this is an issue, you can disable it by setting LIBP2P_TCP_REUSEPORT to false.

Default: true

LIBP2P_TCP_MUX

By default Kubo tries to reuse the same listener port for raw TCP and WebSockets transports via experimental libp2p.ShareTCPListener() feature introduced in go-libp2p#2984. If this is an issue, you can disable it by setting LIBP2P_TCP_MUX to false and use separate ports for each TCP transport.

Caution

This configuration option may be removed once libp2p.ShareTCPListener() becomes default in go-libp2p.

Default: true

LIBP2P_MUX_PREFS

Deprecated: Use the Swarm.Transports.Multiplexers config field.

Tells Kubo which multiplexers to use in which order.

Default: "/yamux/1.0.0 /mplex/6.7.0"

LIBP2P_RCMGR

Forces libp2p Network Resource Manager to be enabled (1) or disabled (0). When set, overrides Swarm.ResourceMgr.Enabled from the config.

Default: use config (not set)

LIBP2P_DEBUG_RCMGR

Enables tracing of libp2p Network Resource Manager and outputs it to rcmgr.json.gz

Default: disabled (not set)

LIBP2P_SWARM_FD_LIMIT

This variable controls the number of concurrent outbound dials (except dials to relay addresses which have their own limiting logic).

Reducing it slows down connection ballooning but might affect performance negatively.

Default: 160 (not set)

Tracing

For tracing configuration, please check: https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/blob/main/docs/tracing.md