Linux+Java Application Tracing

This guide is based on a Java application packaged with Maven. Please reference Otels documentation for different setups - Java zero-code instrumentation

Install the collector

At the time of writing, the latest version of the OpenTelemetry Collector is 0.117.0

1. Find the latest version of the OpenTelemetry collectors here. In this guide we will install otelcol-contrib_0.117.0_linux_amd64

2. Download and install

   1. Deb-based

      1. sudo apt-get update

      2. sudo apt-get -y install wget

      3. wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.117.0/otelcol-contrib_0.117.0_linux_amd64.deb

      4. sudo dpkg -i otelcol-contrib_0.117.0_linux_amd64.deb

   2. RHEL-based

      1. sudo dnf update -y

      2. sudo dnf install -y wget

      3. wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.117.0/otelcol-contrib_0.117.0_linux_amd64.rpm

      4. sudo rpm -ivh otelcol-contrib_0.117.0_linux_amd64.rpm

3. Navigate to /etc/otelcol-contrib/

4. Edit the config file with your favourite file editor, for example: nano config.yaml

5. Paste the following into the config file overwriting it completely:

   receivers: otlp: protocols: grpc: endpoint: localhost:4317 http: endpoint: localhost:4318 processors: batch: exporters: otlphttp: traces_endpoint: https://<your_domain>/v1/json_batch/otlptraces encoding: json compression: gzip headers: Authorization: "Bearer <your_token>" tls: insecure: false insecure_skip_verify: true service: pipelines: traces: receivers: [otlp] processors: [batch] exporters: [otlphttp]

   1. Replace <your_domain> with the domain of your Ascent environment e.g company.apica.io

   2. Replace <your_token> with your ingest token (How to get your ingest token)

6. When you’ve finished editing the config, save it and run otelcol-contrib validate --config=config.yaml

   1. If you get no error returned, the config file is valid.

7. Restart the service with sudo systemctl restart otelcol-contrib

8. Verify that the service is up and running correctly with sudo systemctl status otelcol-contrib

Install and configure the Java agent

At the time of writing, the latest version of the Java agent is 2.11.0

1. Download the agent jar - opentelemetry-javaagent.jar

   1. wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation/releases/download/v2.11.0/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar

2. Run Your Application with the Agent: Add the agent as a JVM option when starting your application:

   java -javaagent:/path/to/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar \ -Dotel.exporter.otlp.endpoint=http://localhost:4317 \ -Dotel.exporter.otlp.protocol=grpc \ -Dotel.traces.exporter=otlp \ -Dotel.metrics.exporter=none \ -Dotel.service.name=your-java-app \ -Dotel.resource.attributes=environment=production \ -jar your-app.jar

Depending on the amount of traces generated, you can pretty quickly verify that traces is passing through to Ascent by navigating to Explore > Distributed Tracing and in the dropdown Service you will after a short while see your application appear.

In this case, the service name “your-java-app” would show up as a Service.