iStats v13 command help

Documentation here is atrocious. However, I've been poking around at iStats lately and (through trial and error) I think I can explain how this command actually works.

Basically, setting an iStat goes like this:

istats set "<TABLE_KEYSPACE> <ROW_NAME> <MEASURE_TYPE> <COLUMN_NAME>"
 
# or (via iRule)
ISTATS::set "<TABLE_KEYSPACE> <ROW_NAME> <MEASURE_TYPE> <COLUMN_NAME>"

So to create iStats tables that (in our heads) look like this:

#
# ---------------- table_1 ----------------
#              [column_1]  |  [column_2]
#   [ row_1 ]    lorem     |    ipsum
#   [ row_2 ]    dolor     |    magna
#
 
# 
# ----------------------- table_2 ------------------------
#              [column_1]  |  [column_2]  |  [column_3]
#   [ row_1 ]     amet     |    dolore    |    aliqua
#

we would:

istats set "table_1 row_1 string column_1" "lorem"
istats set "table_1 row_1 string column_2" "ipsum"
istats set "table_1 row_2 string column_1" "dolor"
istats set "table_1 row_2 string column_2" "magna"
istats set "table_2 row_1 string column_1" "amet"
istats set "table_2 row_1 string column_2" "dolore"
istats set "table_2 row_1 string column_3" "aliqua"

and to pull that back out we would use:

istats get "table_1 row_2 string column_2"
 
# or grab all iStats
istats dump

Straightforward so far, but now we get to those other commands, which should make a lot more sense now that we know what keyspace/row/column all mean in this context.

# istats remove "<TABLE_KEYSPACE> <ROW_NAME> <MEASURE_TYPE> <COLUMN_NAME>"
# sets the value to default (does not actually remove anything from the table)
istats remove "table_2 row_1 string column_2"
 
# istats drop_row "<TABLE_KEYSPACE> <ROW_NAME>"
# actually removes a row from the table
istats drop_row "table_1 row_2"
 
# istats drop_column "keyspace <TABLE_KEYSPACE> <MEASURE_TYPE> <COLUMN_NAME>"
# removes a column from all rows in a particular table
istats drop_column "keyspace table_2 string column_3"

PLEASE NOTE:

It is very dangerous to add too many columns to a particular table. The maximum length of the line (the sum of all columns) is 4032 bytes. If you exceed this limit (which is surprisingly easy to do), you will corrupt your iStats and running any further istats commands will

1. produce weird, inconsistent results
2. cause the BIG-IP to core and tmm to restart