opentelemetry-java-contrib/runtime-attach

Runtime attachment

If you can't update the JVM arguments to attach the OpenTelemetry Java agent (-javaagent:path/to/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar), this project allows you to do attachment programmatically.

The io.opentelemetry.contrib.attach.RuntimeAttach class has an attachJavaagentToCurrentJVM method allowing to trigger the attachment of the OTel agent for Java.

The attachment will not be initiated in the following cases:

• The otel.javaagent.enabled property is set to false
• The OTEL_JAVAAGENT_ENABLED environment variable is set to false
• The attachment is not requested from the main thread
• The attachment is not requested from the public static void main(String[] args) method
• The agent is already attached

The attachment must be requested at the beginning of the public static void main(String[] args) method. We give below an example for Spring Boot applications:

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootApp {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        RuntimeAttach.attachJavaagentToCurrentJVM();
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApp.class, args);
    }

}

Component owners

• Nikita Salnikov-Tarnovski, Splunk
• Trask Stalnaker, Microsoft

Learn more about component owners in component_owners.yml.