istio.io/content/en/docs/tasks/observability/distributed-tracing/opentelemetry/index.md

title	description	weight	keywords	aliases	owner	test
OpenTelemetry	Learn how to configure the proxies to send OpenTelemetry traces to a Collector.	10	telemetry tracing opentelemetry span port-forwarding	/docs/tasks/telemetry/distributed-tracing/opentelemetry/	istio/wg-policies-and-telemetry-maintainers	yes

After completing this task, you will understand how to have your application participate in tracing with OpenTelemetry, regardless of the language, framework, or platform you use to build your application.

This task uses the Bookinfo sample as the example application and the OpenTelemetry Collector as the receiver of traces.

To learn how Istio handles tracing, visit this task's overview.

Deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector

{{< boilerplate start-otel-collector-service >}}

Installation

All tracing options can be configured globally via MeshConfig. To simplify configuration, it is recommended to create a single YAML file which you can pass to the istioctl install -f command.

Choosing the exporter

Istio can be configured to export OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) traces via gRPC or HTTP. Only one exporter can be configured at a time (either gRPC or HTTP).

Exporting via gRPC

In this example, traces will be exported via OTLP/gRPC to the OpenTelemetry Collector. The example also enables the environment resource detector. The environment detector adds attributes from the environment variable OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES to the exported OpenTelemetry resource.

{{< text syntax=bash snip_id=none >}} $ cat <<EOF | istioctl install -y -f - apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1 kind: IstioOperator spec: meshConfig: enableTracing: true extensionProviders: - name: otel-tracing opentelemetry: port: 4317 service: opentelemetry-collector.observability.svc.cluster.local resource_detectors: environment: {} EOF {{< /text >}}

Exporting via HTTP

In this example, traces will be exported via OTLP/HTTP to the OpenTelemetry Collector. The example also enables the environment resource detector. The environment detector adds attributes from the environment variable OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES to the exported OpenTelemetry resource.

{{< text syntax=bash snip_id=install_otlp_http >}} $ cat <<EOF | istioctl install -y -f - apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1 kind: IstioOperator spec: meshConfig: enableTracing: true extensionProviders: - name: otel-tracing opentelemetry: port: 4318 service: opentelemetry-collector.observability.svc.cluster.local http: path: "/v1/traces" timeout: 5s headers: - name: "custom-header" value: "custom value" resource_detectors: environment: {} EOF {{< /text >}}

Enable tracing for mesh via Telemetry API

Enable tracing by applying the following configuration:

{{< text syntax=bash snip_id=enable_telemetry >}} $ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1 kind: Telemetry metadata: name: otel-demo spec: tracing:

• providers:
  • name: otel-tracing randomSamplingPercentage: 100 customTags: "my-attribute": literal: value: "default-value" EOF {{< /text >}}

Deploy the Bookinfo Application

Deploy the Bookinfo sample application.

Generating traces using the Bookinfo sample

1. When the Bookinfo application is up and running, access http://$GATEWAY_URL/productpage one or more times to generate trace information.

   {{< boilerplate trace-generation >}}

2. The OpenTelemetry Collector used in the example is configured to export traces to the console. If you used the example Collector config, you can verify traces are arriving by looking at the Collector logs. It should contain something like:

   {{< text syntax=yaml snip_id=none >}} Resource SchemaURL: Resource labels: -> service.name: STRING(productpage.default) ScopeSpans #0 ScopeSpans SchemaURL: InstrumentationScope Span #0 Trace ID : 79fb7b59c1c3a518750a5d6dad7cd2d1 Parent ID : 0cf792b061f0ad51 ID : 2dff26f3b4d6d20f Name : egress reviews:9080 Kind : SPAN_KIND_CLIENT Start time : 2024-01-30 15:57:58.588041 +0000 UTC End time : 2024-01-30 15:57:59.451116 +0000 UTC Status code : STATUS_CODE_UNSET Status message : Attributes: -> node_id: STRING(sidecar~10.244.0.8~productpage-v1-564d4686f-t6s4m.default~default.svc.cluster.local) -> zone: STRING() -> guid:x-request-id: STRING(da543297-0dd6-998b-bd29-fdb184134c8c) -> http.url: STRING(http://reviews:9080/reviews/0) -> http.method: STRING(GET) -> downstream_cluster: STRING(-) -> user_agent: STRING(curl/7.74.0) -> http.protocol: STRING(HTTP/1.1) -> peer.address: STRING(10.244.0.8) -> request_size: STRING(0) -> response_size: STRING(441) -> component: STRING(proxy) -> upstream_cluster: STRING(outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local) -> upstream_cluster.name: STRING(outbound|9080||reviews.default.svc.cluster.local) -> http.status_code: STRING(200) -> response_flags: STRING(-) -> istio.namespace: STRING(default) -> istio.canonical_service: STRING(productpage) -> istio.mesh_id: STRING(cluster.local) -> istio.canonical_revision: STRING(v1) -> istio.cluster_id: STRING(Kubernetes) -> my-attribute: STRING(default-value) {{< /text >}}

Cleanup

1. Remove the Telemetry resource:

   {{< text syntax=bash snip_id=cleanup_telemetry >}} $ kubectl delete telemetry otel-demo {{< /text >}}

2. Remove any istioctl processes that may still be running using control-C or:

   {{< text syntax=bash snip_id=none >}} $ killall istioctl {{< /text >}}

3. Uninstall the OpenTelemetry Collector:

   {{< text syntax=bash snip_id=cleanup_collector >}} $ kubectl delete -f @samples/open-telemetry/otel.yaml@ -n observability $ kubectl delete namespace observability {{< /text >}}

4. If you are not planning to explore any follow-on tasks, refer to the Bookinfo cleanup instructions to shutdown the application.