OpenTelemetry Auto-Instrumentation Configuration¶

When you enable auto-instrumentation in your application the following OpenTelemetry configuration will become available to your application as environment variables:

Variable	Example Value
`OTEL_SERVICE_NAME`	`my-application`
`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT`	`http://opentelemetry-collector.nais-system:4317`
`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL`	`grpc`
`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE`	`true`
`OTEL_PROPAGATORS`	`tracecontext,baggage`
`OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER`	`parentbased_always_on`
`OTLE_LOGS_EXPORTER`	`none`
`OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES_POD_NAME`	`my-application-777787df6d-pw9mq`
`OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES_NODE_NAME`	`gke-node-abc123`
`OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES`	`service.name=my-application,service.namespace=my-team,k8s.container.name=my-application,...`

Tip

Do not hardcode these values in your application. OpenTelemetry SDKs and auto-instrumentation libraries will automatically pick up these environment variables and use them to configure the SDK.

Agent Logs¶

You can enable logging for the OpenTelemetry Auto-Instrumentation by setting the OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER environment variable to otlp. This will intercept all logs produced by the application and send them to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

spec:
  env:
    - name: OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER
      value: otlp

Warning

Enabling logging for the OpenTelemetry Auto-Instrumentation will send all logs to the OpenTelemetry Collector including logs from other libraries and frameworks such as log4j, logback, and slf4j. This should not be enabled if you are using Secure Logs.

Agent Versions¶

The OpenTelemetry Agent is used to automatically instrument your application. The agent is responsible for collecting telemetry data and sending it to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Language	Agent Version	SDK Version
Java	2.2.0	1.36.0
Node.js	0.49.1	0.49.1
Python	0.44b0	1.23.0

Java Agent¶

The OpenTelemetry Java Agent is a Java agent that automatically instruments your Java application. The agent is responsible for collecting telemetry data and sending it to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

It is attached to your JVM automatically at startup using the JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS environment variable.

Supported libraries, frameworks, application servers, and JVMs¶

The OpenTelemetry Java Agent supports many popular libraries, frameworks, application servers, and JVMs. A full list of supported libraries and frameworks can be found on the open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation repository.

OpenTelemetry Instrumentation for Java Supported Libraries and Frameworks

Advanced Configuration¶

When using the OpenTelemetry Java SDK and Agent (auto-instrumentation), the following additional environment variables are available:

Variable	Description	Example Value
`OTEL_JAVAAGENT_EXCLUDE_CLASSES`	Suppresses all instrumentation for specific classes, format is "my.package.MyClass,my.package2.*"	`my.package.MyClass,my.package2.*`
`OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_SPRING_BOOT_ACTUATOR_AUTOCONFIGURE_ENABLED`	Enables or disables the Spring Boot Actuator auto-configuration instrumentation	`false`
`OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_MICROMETER_ENABLED`	Enables or disables the Micrometer instrumentation	`false`
`OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_COMMON_EXPERIMENTAL_CONTROLLER_TELEMETRY_ENABLED`	Enables or disables controller span instrumentation	`false`
`OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_COMMON_EXPERIMENTAL_VIEW_TELEMETRY_ENABLED`	Enables or disables view span instrumentation	`false`

Advanced Java configuration options

More OpenTelemetry Configuration¶

A full list of environment variables that can be used to configure the OpenTelemetry SDK can be found here:

OTLP is the OpenTelemetry Protocol, and is the protocol used to send telemetry data to Prometheus, Grafana Tempo, and Grafana Loki.