This artifact implements environment-based autoconfiguration of the OpenTelemetry SDK. This can be an alternative to programmatic configuration using the normal SDK builders.
All options support being passed as Java system properties, e.g., -Dotel.traces.exporter=zipkin
or
environment variables, e.g., OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=zipkin
.
- General notes
- Exporters
- Trace context propagation
- OpenTelemetry Resource
- Batch span processor
- Sampler
- Span limits
- Interval metric reader
- Customizing the OpenTelemetry SDK
- The autoconfigure module registers Java shutdown hooks to shut down the SDK when appropriate. Please note that since this project uses
java.util.logging for all of it's logging, some of that logging may be suppressed during shutdown hooks. This is a bug in the JDK itself,
and not something we can control. If you require logging during shutdown hooks, please consider using
System.out
rather than a logging framework that might shut itself down in a shutdown hook, thus suppressing your log messages. See this JDK bug for more details.
The following configuration properties are common to all exporters:
System property | Environment variable | Purpose |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.exporter | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER | The exporter to be used for tracing. Default is otlp . none means no autoconfigured exporter. |
otel.metrics.exporter | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER | The exporter to be used for metrics. Default is otlp . none means no autoconfigured exporter. |
The OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) span and metric exporters
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.exporter=otlp (default) | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp | Select the OpenTelemetry exporter for tracing (default) |
otel.metrics.exporter=otlp (default) | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp | Select the OpenTelemetry exporter for metrics (default) |
otel.exporter.otlp.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT | The OTLP traces and metrics endpoint to connect to. Must be a URL with a scheme of either http or https based on the use of TLS. Default is http://localhost:4317 . |
otel.exporter.otlp.traces.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT | The OTLP traces endpoint to connect to. Must be a URL with a scheme of either http or https based on the use of TLS. Default is http://localhost:4317 . |
otel.exporter.otlp.metrics.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_ENDPOINT | The OTLP metrics endpoint to connect to. Must be a URL with a scheme of either http or https based on the use of TLS. Default is http://localhost:4317 . |
otel.exporter.otlp.headers | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS | Key-value pairs separated by commas to pass as request headers. |
otel.exporter.otlp.timeout | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT | The maximum waiting time allowed to send each batch. Default is 1000 . |
To configure the service name for the OTLP exporter, add the service.name
key
to the OpenTelemetry Resource (see below), e.g. OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES=service.name=myservice
.
The Jaeger exporter. This exporter uses gRPC for its communications protocol.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.exporter=jaeger | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=jaeger | Select the Jaeger exporter |
otel.exporter.jaeger.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_JAEGER_ENDPOINT | The Jaeger gRPC endpoint to connect to. Default is http://localhost:14250 . |
The Zipkin exporter. It sends JSON in Zipkin format to a specified HTTP URL.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.exporter=zipkin | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=zipkin | Select the Zipkin exporter |
otel.exporter.zipkin.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_ZIPKIN_ENDPOINT | The Zipkin endpoint to connect to. Default is http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans . Currently only HTTP is supported. |
The Prometheus exporter.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.metrics.exporter=prometheus | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=prometheus | Select the Prometheus exporter |
otel.exporter.prometheus.port | OTEL_EXPORTER_PROMETHEUS_PORT | The local port used to bind the prometheus metric server. Default is 9464 . |
otel.exporter.prometheus.host | OTEL_EXPORTER_PROMETHEUS_HOST | The local address used to bind the prometheus metric server. Default is 0.0.0.0 . |
Note that this is a pull exporter - it opens up a server on the local process listening on the specified host and port, which a Prometheus server scrapes from.
The logging exporter prints the name of the span along with its attributes to stdout. It's mainly used for testing and debugging.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.exporter=logging | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=logging | Select the logging exporter for tracing |
otel.metrics.exporter=logging | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=logging | Select the logging exporter for metrics |
otel.exporter.logging.prefix | OTEL_EXPORTER_LOGGING_PREFIX | An optional string printed in front of the span name and attributes. |
The propagators determine which distributed tracing header formats are used, and which baggage propagation header formats are used.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.propagators | OTEL_PROPAGATORS | The propagators to be used. Use a comma-separated list for multiple propagators. Default is tracecontext,baggage (W3C). |
Supported values are
"tracecontext"
: W3C Trace Context (addbaggage
as well to include W3C baggage)"baggage"
: W3C Baggage"b3"
: B3 Single"b3multi"
: B3 Multi"jaeger"
: Jaeger (includes Jaeger baggage)"xray"
: AWS X-Ray"ottrace"
: OT Trace
The OpenTelemetry Resource is a representation of the entity producing telemetry.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.resource.attributes | OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES | Specify resource attributes in the following format: key1=val1,key2=val2,key3=val3 |
You almost always want to specify the service.name
for your application.
It corresponds to how you describe the application, for example authservice
could be an application that authenticates requests, and cats
could be an application that returns information about cats.
This means you would specify resource attributes something like OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES=service.name=authservice
, or -Dotel.resource.attributes=service.name=cats,service.namespace=mammals
.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.bsp.schedule.delay | OTEL_BSP_SCHEDULE_DELAY | The interval, in milliseconds, between two consecutive exports. Default is 5000 . |
otel.bsp.max.queue.size | OTEL_BSP_MAX_QUEUE_SIZE | The maximum queue size. Default is 2048 . |
otel.bsp.max.export.batch.size | OTEL_BSP_MAX_EXPORT_BATCH_SIZE | The maximum batch size. Default is 512 . |
otel.bsp.export.timeout | OTEL_BSP_EXPORT_TIMEOUT | The maximum allowed time, in milliseconds, to export data. Default is 30000 . |
The sampler configures whether spans will be recorded for any call to SpanBuilder.startSpan
.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.traces.sampler | OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER | The sampler to use for tracing. Defaults to parentbased_always_on |
otel.traces.sampler.arg | OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG | An argument to the configured tracer if supported, for example a ratio. |
Supported values for otel.traces.sampler
are
- "always_on": AlwaysOnSampler
- "always_off": AlwaysOffSampler
- "traceidratio": TraceIdRatioBased.
otel.traces.sampler.arg
sets the ratio. - "parentbased_always_on": ParentBased(root=AlwaysOnSampler)
- "parentbased_always_off": ParentBased(root=AlwaysOffSampler)
- "parentbased_traceidratio": ParentBased(root=TraceIdRatioBased).
otel.traces.sampler.arg
sets the ratio.
These properties can be used to control the maximum size of recordings per span.
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.span.attribute.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_ATTRIBUTE_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of attributes per span. Default is 128 . |
otel.span.event.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_EVENT_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of events per span. Default is 128 . |
otel.span.link.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_LINK_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of links per span. Default is 128 |
System property | Environment variable | Description |
---|---|---|
otel.imr.export.interval | OTEL_IMR_EXPORT_INTERVAL | The interval, in milliseconds, between pushes to the exporter. Default is 60000 . |
Autoconfiguration exposes SPI hooks for customizing behavior programmatically as needed. It's recommended to use the above configuration properties where possible, only implementing the SPI to add functionality not found in the SDK by default.