db_faq.md

# Database FAQ

### How to read DB directly - not by Json-RPC/Graphql:

There are 2 options exist:

1. call --private.api.addr there is grpc interface with low-level data access methods - can read any data in any order,
   etc... Interface is here: https://github.com/ledgerwatch/interfaces/blob/master/remote/kv.proto
   Go/C++/Rust libs already exist. Names of buckets and their format you can find in `bucket.go` You can do such calls
   by network.
2. Read Erigon's db while Erigon is running - it's also ok - just need be careful - do not run too long read
   transactions (long read transactions do block free space in DB). Then your app will share with Erigon same OS-level
   PageCache where hot part of db stored. It may be great - if you read hot data (for example do incremental update of
   graph node) - then your reads will be super fast and almost never touch disk. But if you wanna read cold data - then
   your app will load cold data to PageCache and maybe evict some Erigon's hot data. Probably it will not be very
   dangerous - because your reads will happen once while Erigon will touch hot data often and OS's built-in LRU will
   understand which data is more Hot and keep it in RAM.

this 2 options ^ are exactly how RPCDaemon works with flags `--private.api.addr` and `--datadir`. One by using grpc
interface, another by opening Erigon's db in read-only mode while Erigon running. But both this options are
using `RoKV` (stands for read-only) `kv_abstract.go` interface. Option 1 using `kv_remote.go` to implement `RoKV`,
option 2 using - `kv_mdbx.go`

Erigon using MDBX database. But any articles in internet about LMDB are also valid for MDBX.

We have Go, Rust and C++ implementations of `RoKV` interface.

Rationale and Architecture of DB interface: [./../../ethdb/Readme.md](./../../ethdb/Readme.md)

MDBX docs: [erthink.github.io/libmdbx/](https://erthink.github.io/libmdbx/)
and [https://github.com/erthink/libmdbx/blob/master/mdbx.h](https://github.com/erthink/libmdbx/blob/master/mdbx.h)


### How RAM used

Erigon will use all available RAM, but this RAM will not belong to Eroigon’s process. OS will own all this
memory. And OS will maintain hot part of DB in RAM. If OS will need RAM for other programs or for second Erigon instance
OS will manage all the work. This called PageCache. Erigon itself using under 2Gb. So, Erigon will benefit from more
RAM and will use all RAM without re-configuration. Same PageCache can be used by other processes if they run on same
machine by just opening same DB file. For example if RPCDaemon started with —datadir option - it will open db of
Erigon and will use same PageCache (if data A already in RAM because it’s hot and RPCDaemon read it - then it read it
from RAM not from Disk). Shared memory.