Coding questions · Render
Count Blocked Rate-Limited Requests
This question evaluates understanding of rate-limiting logic, sliding-window time-based counting, and data structure design for tracking per-IP and per-(IP, host) request histories.
You are given an in-memory request log for a web platform. Each log entry has:
timestamp: an ISO-8601 UTC timestamprequest_ip: the client IPv4 addresshost: the hostname being requested
The log is already sorted by time in ascending order, and you may assume it fits in memory.
A request is evaluated against a sliding window of T seconds. For a request at time t, only earlier requests with timestamps in the interval (t - T, t) are counted. A request that happened exactly T seconds earlier is not in the window.
Important rules:
- A request that gets blocked must still be counted in the history for future requests.
- If multiple requests have the same timestamp, process them in input order.
- In part 2, if a request violates both rules, it should be counted as one blocked request, not two.
Part 1: Per-IP rate limiting
Implement logic to count how many requests would be blocked by this rule:
- A request from IP
xis blocked if there have already been at leastIPReqMaxrequests from the same IP in the previousTseconds.
In other words, the current request is blocked when:
count(previous requests from same IP in (t - T, t)) >= IPReqMax
Example
Input log:
timestamp,request_ip,host
2024-01-01T00:00:00+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
2024-01-01T00:00:01+00:00,127.0.0.1,example2.com
2024-01-01T00:01:02+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
2024-01-01T00:01:03+00:00,127.0.0.1,example2.com
2024-01-01T00:01:04+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
2024-01-01T00:02:04+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
With IPReqMax = 1 and T = 60:
- Request 1 -> succeed
- Request 2 -> blocked
- Request 3 -> succeed
- Request 4 -> blocked
- Request 5 -> blocked
- Request 6 -> succeed
So the answer is 3 blocked requests.
Part 2: Per-IP and per-(IP, host) rate limiting
Now add a second rule:
- A request from IP
xto hosthis also blocked if there have already been at leastIPHostReqMaxrequests from the same IP to the same host in the previousTseconds.
A request is blocked if either of these is true:
count(previous requests from same IP in (t - T, t)) >= IPReqMaxcount(previous requests from same IP and same host in (t - T, t)) >= IPHostReqMax
Again, blocked requests still contribute to both counters for future requests.
Example
Input log:
timestamp,request_ip,host
2024-01-01T00:00:00+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
2024-01-01T00:00:01+00:00,127.0.0.1,example2.com
2024-01-01T00:00:10+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
2024-01-01T00:00:11+00:00,127.0.0.1,example3.com
2024-01-01T00:01:04+00:00,127.0.0.1,example3.com
2024-01-01T00:01:11+00:00,127.0.0.1,example1.com
With IPReqMax = 3, IPHostReqMax = 1, and T = 60:
- Request 1 -> succeed
- Request 2 -> succeed
- Request 3 -> blocked by per-(IP, host) rule
- Request 4 -> blocked by per-IP rule
- Request 5 -> blocked by per-(IP, host) rule
- Request 6 -> succeed
So the answer is 3 blocked requests.
Task
Write an efficient function or program that, given the sorted request log and the parameters:
TIPReqMax- optionally
IPHostReqMax
returns:
- the number of blocked requests under the per-IP rule only, and
- the number of blocked requests under the combined per-IP and per-(IP, host) rules.
Aim for an approach that is efficient for large logs loaded into memory.
Count Blocked Rate-Limited Requests
Constraints
- Logs are sorted ascending by timestamp
- Same-timestamp requests are processed in input order
Hints
- Maintain deques of timestamps per key and evict expired entries.