Files
git.stella-ops.org/docs/doctor/articles/timestamping/tsa-response-time.md
master c58a236d70 Doctor plugin checks: implement health check classes and documentation
Implement remediation-aware health checks across all Doctor plugin modules
(Agent, Attestor, Auth, BinaryAnalysis, Compliance, Crypto, Environment,
EvidenceLocker, Notify, Observability, Operations, Policy, Postgres, Release,
Scanner, Storage, Vex) and their backing library counterparts (AI, Attestation,
Authority, Core, Cryptography, Database, Docker, Integration, Notify,
Observability, Security, ServiceGraph, Sources, Verification).

Each check now emits structured remediation metadata (severity, category,
runbook links, and fix suggestions) consumed by the Doctor dashboard
remediation panel.

Also adds:
- docs/doctor/articles/ knowledge base for check explanations
- Advisory AI search seed and allowlist updates for doctor content
- Sprint plan for doctor checks documentation

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-03-27 12:28:00 +02:00

2.0 KiB

checkId, plugin, severity, tags
checkId plugin severity tags
check.timestamp.tsa.response-time stellaops.doctor.timestamping warn
timestamping
tsa
latency
performance

TSA Response Time

What It Checks

Measures TSA endpoint response times against configurable thresholds. The check:

  • Probes each configured TSA endpoint and measures round-trip latency.
  • Compares latency against warning threshold (default 5000ms) and critical threshold (default 30000ms).
  • Fails if any endpoint exceeds the critical latency threshold.
  • Warns if any endpoint exceeds the warning threshold.
  • Passes if all endpoints respond within acceptable latency.
  • Reports degraded if no endpoints are configured.

Why It Matters

High TSA latency slows down the evidence generation pipeline. Every release artifact that needs a timestamp will be delayed by slow TSA responses. In high-throughput environments, TSA latency can become a bottleneck that blocks the entire release pipeline.

Common Causes

  • TSA server under heavy load
  • Network latency to remote TSA endpoints
  • Firewall or proxy adding latency
  • TSA provider experiencing service degradation

How to Fix

Docker Compose

Consider adding a geographically closer TSA endpoint or a local TSA:

environment:
  Timestamping__WarnLatencyMs: "5000"
  Timestamping__CriticalLatencyMs: "30000"

Bare Metal / systemd

# Test TSA latency manually
time curl -s -o /dev/null https://freetsa.org/tsr

# Add a faster TSA endpoint
stella tsa add --name "LocalTSA" --url "https://tsa.internal.example.com/tsr"

Kubernetes / Helm

timestamping:
  warnLatencyMs: 5000
  criticalLatencyMs: 30000

Consider deploying a local TSA proxy or cache to reduce latency.

Verification

stella doctor run --check check.timestamp.tsa.response-time
  • check.timestamp.tsa.reachable — verifies TSA endpoints are reachable
  • check.timestamp.tsa.valid-response — verifies valid RFC-3161 responses
  • check.timestamp.tsa.failover-ready — confirms failover readiness