Why consume continue accumulating points after the block?

[00christian00]

Hello,
I read the documentation many times and never understood why the login protection example was so complex compared to the base rate limiting example and today I finally realized.
Why does the "consume" method continue accumulating points and resetting the block duration?
Wouldn't be simpler if we could just rely on the consume error to simply check if we run out of points like we do in the base example?
What scenario benefits from having to validate the points before consuming? Seem redundant to me, but maybe I am missing something.

The docs says "The example can be simplified if replace two get requests in the beginning to two consume calls, but there are concerns. First, consume calls are more expensive".
Which seems that it is supposed to work, but in reality the result seems to be much different as the block seem to be restarted every time we consume.

[animir]

@00christian00 Hey. Interesting observation.

as the block seem to be restarted every time we consume

Firstly, it will never consume points if key is blocked already. Preliminar get result check takes care of that.
Secondly, how do you know that consume method restarts the block?

[00christian00]

@00christian00 Hey. Interesting observation.

as the block seem to be restarted every time we consume

Firstly, it will never consume points if key is blocked already. Preliminar get result check takes care of that. Secondly, how do you know that consume method restarts the block?

Are you referring to the login protection example or the normal "consume" method?
Because I have been debugging a simple login limiter I had implemented by just consuming point on each login api call and the points keep accumulating, the value of consumedPoints passed the total points.
Regarding the second part, I was checking msBeforeNext and it always returned the value of the blockduration, that's when I realized I cannot spam the "consume" method aimlessly without checking if I have consumed the point just like the example you provided, because if I do so the block will never expire.
I am using the memory backend for testing, and pm2 backend in production. Not using the redis backend, so maybe the workflow is different there?

[animir]

@00christian00 The first part

Firstly, it will never consume points if key is blocked already. Preliminar get result check takes care of that.

is about login protection example.

The second part

Secondly, how do you know that consume method restarts the block?

is about how consume method works. consume shouldn't reset blockDuration, but points will be counted (increased).

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Could you share your code?

[00christian00]

I already modified it, now I tried to revert to it and I get the correct value. Either I was checking the wrong variable or I did something that I cannot remember. Now it is working as expected....
Except for the points that you mentioned it is expected.

[animir]

Ok.
I'll repeat it here in case somebody will be looking for the same answer.

Consume method always increment points.
Block extends period until points are reset.