Allow ?no_track_activity=1 to opt-out of activity tracking (#4235)

* Don't track API requests with `?no_track_activity=1` in the activity counter

allows external idle-culling scripts to avoid updating the activity counter

* Don't track kernel shutdown as kernel activity

this causes idle-kernel shutdowns to restart the idle-shutdown timer

user-requested shutdowns will still be tracked as api activity

* test ?no_track_activity=1 tracking

* Changelog for activity

docs/source/changelog.rst

@@ -21,6 +21,16 @@ We strongly recommend that you upgrade pip to version 9+ of pip before upgrading
     Use ``pip install pip --upgrade`` to upgrade pip. Check pip version with
     ``pip --version``.
 
+.. _release-6.0.0:
+
+6.0.0
+-----
+
+- add ``?no_track_activity=1`` argument to allow API requests
+  to not be registered as activity (e.g. API calls by external activity monitors).
+- Kernels shutting down due to an idle timeout is no longer considered
+  an activity-updating event.
+
 .. _release-5.7.8:
 
 5.7.8

notebook/base/handlers.py

@@ -650,7 +650,11 @@ def content_security_policy(self):
     def update_api_activity(self):
         """Update last_activity of API requests"""
         # record activity of authenticated requests
-        if self._track_activity and getattr(self, '_user_cache', None):
+        if (
+            self._track_activity
+            and getattr(self, '_user_cache', None)
+            and self.get_argument('no_track_activity', None) is None
+        ):
             self.settings['api_last_activity'] = utcnow()
 
     def finish(self, *args, **kwargs):

notebook/services/api/tests/test_api.py

@@ -1,27 +1,27 @@
 """Test the basic /api endpoints"""
 
-import requests
+from datetime import timedelta
 
-from notebook._tz import isoformat
+from notebook._tz import isoformat, utcnow
 from notebook.utils import url_path_join
 from notebook.tests.launchnotebook import NotebookTestBase
 
 
-class KernelAPITest(NotebookTestBase):
+class APITest(NotebookTestBase):
     """Test the kernels web service API"""
-    
+
     def _req(self, verb, path, **kwargs):
         r = self.request(verb, url_path_join('api', path))
         r.raise_for_status()
         return r
-    
+
     def get(self, path, **kwargs):
         return self._req('GET', path)
-    
+
     def test_get_spec(self):
         r = self.get('spec.yaml')
         assert r.text
-    
+
     def test_get_status(self):
         r = self.get('status')
         data = r.json()
@@ -30,3 +30,18 @@ def test_get_status(self):
         assert data['last_activity'].endswith('Z')
         assert data['started'].endswith('Z')
         assert data['started'] == isoformat(self.notebook.web_app.settings['started'])
+
+    def test_no_track_activity(self):
+        # initialize with old last api activity
+        old = utcnow() - timedelta(days=1)
+        settings = self.notebook.web_app.settings
+        settings['api_last_activity'] = old
+        # accessing status doesn't update activity
+        self.get('status')
+        assert settings['api_last_activity'] == old
+        # accessing with ?no_track_activity doesn't update activity
+        self.get('contents?no_track_activity=1')
+        assert settings['api_last_activity'] == old
+        # accessing without ?no_track_activity does update activity
+        self.get('contents')
+        assert settings['api_last_activity'] > old

notebook/services/kernels/kernelmanager.py

@@ -292,7 +292,6 @@ def shutdown_kernel(self, kernel_id, now=False):
             kernel._activity_stream = None
         self.stop_buffering(kernel_id)
         self._kernel_connections.pop(kernel_id, None)
-        self.last_kernel_activity = utcnow()
 
         # Decrease the metric of number of kernels
         # running for the relevant kernel type by 1