init-tracing-opentelemetry

A set of helpers to initialize (and more) tracing + opentelemetry (compose your own or use opinionated preset)

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Simple preset
    let _guard = init_tracing_opentelemetry::TracingConfig::production().init_subscriber()?;

    //...

    Ok(())
}

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // custom configuration
    let _guard = init_tracing_opentelemetry::TracingConfig::default()
        .with_json_format()
        .with_stderr()
        .with_log_directives("debug")
        .init_subscriber()?;

    //...

    Ok(())
}

The init_subscriber() function returns an OtelGuard instance. Following the guard pattern, this struct provides no functions but, when dropped, ensures that any pending traces/metrics are sent before it exits. The syntax let _guard is suggested to ensure that Rust does not drop the struct until the application exits.

Configuration Options

Presets

• TracingConfig::development() - Pretty format, stderr, with debug info
• TracingConfig::production() - JSON format, stdout, minimal metadata
• TracingConfig::debug() - Full verbosity with all span events
• TracingConfig::minimal() - Compact format, no OpenTelemetry
• TracingConfig::testing() - Minimal output for tests

Custom Configuration

use init_tracing_opentelemetry::TracingConfig;

TracingConfig::default()
    .with_pretty_format()           // or .with_json_format(), .with_compact_format()
    .with_stderr()                  // or .with_stdout(), .with_file(path)
    .with_log_directives("debug")   // Custom log levels
    .with_line_numbers(true)        // Include line numbers
    .with_thread_names(true)        // Include thread names
    .with_otel(true)                // Enable OpenTelemetry
    .init_subscriber()
    .expect("valid tracing configuration");

Legacy API (deprecated)

For backward compatibility, the old API is still available:

pub fn build_loglevel_filter_layer() -> tracing_subscriber::filter::EnvFilter {
    // filter what is output on log (fmt)
    // std::env::set_var("RUST_LOG", "warn,axum_tracing_opentelemetry=info,otel=debug");
    std::env::set_var(
        "RUST_LOG",
        format!(
            // `otel::tracing` should be a level trace to emit opentelemetry trace & span
            // `otel::setup` set to debug to log detected resources, configuration read and infered
            "{},otel::tracing=trace,otel=debug",
            std::env::var("RUST_LOG")
                .or_else(|_| std::env::var("OTEL_LOG_LEVEL"))
                .unwrap_or_else(|_| "info".to_string())
        ),
    );
    EnvFilter::from_default_env()
}

pub fn build_otel_layer<S>() -> Result<OpenTelemetryLayer<S, Tracer>, BoxError>
where
    S: Subscriber + for<'a> LookupSpan<'a>,
{
    use crate::{
        init_propagator, //stdio,
        otlp,
        resource::DetectResource,
    };
    let otel_rsrc = DetectResource::default()
        //.with_fallback_service_name(env!("CARGO_PKG_NAME"))
        //.with_fallback_service_version(env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION"))
        .build();
    let otel_tracer = otlp::init_tracer(otel_rsrc, otlp::identity)?;
    // to not send trace somewhere, but continue to create and propagate,...
    // then send them to `axum_tracing_opentelemetry::stdio::WriteNoWhere::default()`
    // or to `std::io::stdout()` to print
    //
    // let otel_tracer =
    //     stdio::init_tracer(otel_rsrc, stdio::identity, stdio::WriteNoWhere::default())?;
    init_propagator()?;
    Ok(tracing_opentelemetry::layer().with_tracer(otel_tracer))
}

To retrieve the current trace_id (eg to add it into error message (as header or attributes))

  # use tracing_opentelemetry_instrumentation_sdk;

  let trace_id = tracing_opentelemetry_instrumentation_sdk::find_current_trace_id();
  //json!({ "error" :  "xxxxxx", "trace_id": trace_id})

Configuration based on the environment variables

To ease setup and compliance with OpenTelemetry SDK configuration, the configuration can be done with the following environment variables (see sample init_tracing() above):

• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT fallback to OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT for the url of the exporter / collector
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL fallback to OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL, fallback to auto-detection based on ENDPOINT port
• OTEL_SERVICE_NAME for the name of the service
• OTEL_PROPAGATORS for the configuration of the propagators
• OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER & OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG for configuration of the sampler

Few other environment variables can also be used to configure OTLP exporter (eg to configure headers, authentication,, etc...):

• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_HEADERS

# For GRPC:
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4317"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL="grpc"
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER="always_on"

# For HTTP:
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT="http://127.0.0.1:4318/v1/traces"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL="http/protobuf"
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER="always_on"

In the context of kubernetes, some of the above environment variables can be injected by the Opentelemetry operator (via inject-sdk):

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        # to inject environment variables only by opentelemetry-operator
        instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-sdk: "opentelemetry-operator/instrumentation"
        instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/container-names: "app"
      containers:
        - name: app

Or if you don't setup inject-sdk, you can manually set the environment variable eg

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      containers:
        - name: app
          env:
            - name: OTEL_SERVICE_NAME
              value: "app"
            - name: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL
              value: "grpc"
            # for otel collector in `deployment` mode, use the name of the service
            # - name: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
            #   value: "http://opentelemetry-collector.opentelemetry-collector:4317"
            # for otel collector in sidecar mode (imply to deploy a sidecar CR per namespace)
            - name: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
              value: "http://localhost:4317"
            # for `daemonset` mode: need to use the local daemonset (value interpolated by k8s: `$(...)`)
            # - name: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
            #   value: "http://$(HOST_IP):4317"
            # - name: HOST_IP
            #   valueFrom:
            #     fieldRef:
            #       fieldPath: status.hostIP

Troubleshot why no trace?

• check you only have a single version of opentelemtry (could be part of your CI/build), use cargo-deny or cargo tree

  # Check only one version of opentelemetry should be used
  # else issue with setup of global (static variable)
  # check_single_version_opentelemtry:
  cargo tree -i opentelemetry
  

• check the code of your exporter and the integration with tracing (as subscriber's layer)

• check the environment variables of opentelemetry OTEL_EXPORTER... and OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER (values are logged on target otel::setup )

• check that log target otel::tracing enable log level trace (or info if you use tracing_level_info feature) to generate span to send to opentelemetry collector.

Metrics

To configure opentelemetry metrics, enable the metrics feature, this will initialize a SdkMeterProvider, set it globally and add a a MetricsLayer to allow using tracing events to produce metrics.

The opentelemetry_sdk can still be used to produce metrics as well, since we configured the SdkMeterProvider globally, so any Axum/Tonic middleware that does not use tracing but directly opentelemetry::metrics will work.

Configure the following set of environment variables to configure the metrics exporter (on top of those configured above):

• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_ENDPOINT override to OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT for the url of the exporter / collector
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_PROTOCOL override to OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL, fallback to auto-detection based on ENDPOINT port
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TIMEOUT to set the timeout for the connection to the exporter
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TEMPORALITY_PREFERENCE to set the temporality preference for the exporter
• OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL to set frequence of metrics export in milliseconds, defaults to 60s

Changelog - History

CHANGELOG.md