Define custom partitions

Use the influxctl CLI to define custom partition strategies when creating a database or table. By default, InfluxDB Clustered partitions data by day.

The partitioning strategy of a database or table is determined by a partition template which defines the naming pattern for partition keys. Partition keys uniquely identify each partition. When a partition template is applied to a database, it becomes the default template for all tables in that database, but can be overridden when creating a table.

• Create a database with a custom partition template
• Create a table with a custom partition template
• Example partition templates

Use the following command flags to identify partition template parts:

• --template-tag: An InfluxDB tag to use in the partition template.
• --template-tag-bucket: An InfluxDB tag and number of “buckets” to group tag values into. Provide the tag key and the number of buckets to bucket tag values into separated by a comma: tagKey,N.
• --template-timeformat: A Rust strftime date and time string that specifies the time format in the partition template and determines the time interval to partition by.

View partition template part restrictions.

Create a database with a custom partition template

The following example creates a new example-db database and applies a partition template that partitions by distinct values of two tags (room and sensor-type), bucketed values of the customerID tag, and by week using the time format %Y wk:%W:

influxctl database create \
  --template-tag room \
  --template-tag sensor-type \
  --template-tag-bucket customerID,500 \
  --template-timeformat '%Y wk:%W' \
  example-db

Create a table with a custom partition template

The following example creates a new example-table table in the example-db database and applies a partition template that partitions by distinct values of two tags (room and sensor-type), bucketed values of the customerID tag, and by month using the time format %Y-%m:

influxctl table create \
  --template-tag room \
  --template-tag sensor-type \
  --template-tag-bucket customerID,500 \
  --template-timeformat '%Y-%m' \
  example-db \
  example-table

Example partition templates

Given the following line protocol with a 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z timestamp:

prod,line=A,station=weld1 temp=81.9,qty=36i 1704067200000000000

Partitioning by distinct tag values

Partition by tag buckets