Configure your OpenTelemetry Collector

You can configure the OpenTelemetry Collector (opens in a new tab) to send metric and tracing data to Chronosphere Observability Platform. You must send all traffic over HTTPS.

Observability Platform accepts OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) metrics from OpenTelemetry Collectors by using the gRPC OTLP Exporter.

This procedure adds each configuration section separately. For a complete file, which you can modify as needed, see the OpenTelemetry configuration example.

Prerequisites

To use the OpenTelemetry Collector, you need to create a restricted service account, which generates an API token you use to authenticate with Observability Platform. The access you provide for the service account depends on how you use the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Chronosphere recommends storing the API token generated from your service account in a separate file, or securely as a Kubernetes Secret (opens in a new tab), and reference it using an environment variable, such as $API_TOKEN. Binding a Secret to an environment variable on the Pod is a well-supported, secure pattern in Kubernetes.

Configure the OpenTelemetry Collector

To configure the OpenTelemetry Collector to ingest metric and trace data:

1. Pull the OpenTelemetry Docker image (opens in a new tab) to run the OpenTelemetry Collector in a Docker container:

   docker pull otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:VERSION
   docker run otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:VERSION

   Replace VERSION with the version of the OpenTelemetry Collector you want to run, which must be version 0.83 or later.

2. In the OpenTelemetry Collector config.yaml file (opens in a new tab), apply the following settings to modify the exporter YAML collection. Specify an endpoint that points to your Observability Platform tenant, and include the Chronosphere API key you created as an HTTP header.

   You can modify the OpenTelemetry Collector configuration (opens in a new tab) if you want to change the defaults. For example, you can reference a config.yaml in a different location, such as a Kubernetes ConfigMap.

   exporters:
     otlp/chronosphere:
       endpoint: ADDRESS
       timeout: 30s
       retry_on_failure:
         enabled: true
       compression: zstd
       headers:
         API-Token: $API_TOKEN
   • ADDRESS: Your company name prefixed to your Observability Platform instance that ends in .chronosphere.io:443. For example, MY_COMPANY.chronosphere.io:443.
   • API_TOKEN: The API token generated from your service account, specified as an HTTP header. Chronosphere recommends calling this value as an environment variable.
   • retry_on_failure: Set to true to enable retries for all retryable errors.
   • timeout: Set to 30s to prevent larger requests from timing out, as the upstream system may require more time for internal batching.
   The Chronosphere OpenTelemetry endpoint supports snappy, gzip, and zstd compression.

3. Configure batch processing (opens in a new tab). Sending telemetry in batches improves data compression and reduces the number of outgoing connections required to transmit the data.

   For example, the following configuration enforces a maximum batch size limit of 2000 spans without introducing any artificial delays:

   processors:
     batch:
       timeout: 1s
       send_batch_size: 1000
       send_batch_max_size: 2000

   The timeout, batch size, and batch max size are default recommendations. Monitor the exporter send and enqueueing failure metrics to tune these parameters based on your workload.

4. Add the OTLP exporter and the batch processor to the metrics and traces exporters definition.

    service:
      pipelines:
        metrics:
          receivers: [otlp]
          processors: [batch]
          exporters: [otlp/chronosphere]
        traces:
          receivers: [otlp]
          processors: [batch]
          exporters: [otlp/chronosphere]

5. Instruct the OpenTelemetry Collector to load the API token from an environment variable.

   ⚠️

   Never share or store your API token in plain text. Chronosphere recommends using tools like SOPs to securely store this information.

      # In the OpenTelemetry Collector Deployment:
        - name: $API_TOKEN
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: chronosphere-api-token
              key: apiToken
    
      # The accompanying Secret:
        apiVersion: v1
        kind: Secret
        metadata:
          name: chronosphere-api-token
          namespace: YOUR_NAMESPACE
        type: Opaque
        data:
          apiToken: $API_TOKEN

6. Save your OpenTelemetry Collector config.yaml file.

Map resource attributes to Prometheus job and instance

Observability Platform uses the OpenTelemetry service.namespace, service.name and service.instance.id resource attributes as the values for the Prometheus job and instance source labels (opens in a new tab).

• service.namespace/service.name -> job: Recommended. Observability Platform sets the job label value as a concatenation of service.namespace and service.name attribute values. If only service.name is set, then job = "service.name". If neither service.namespace or service.name are present as resource attributes, then Observability Platform doesn't create a job label as part of the conversion.
• service.instance.id -> instance: Required. Observability Platform sets the instance label value to the service.instance.id attribute value. Observability Platform rejects the metric if the service.instance.id resource attribute is missing.

To ensure all metrics have a valid service.instance.id attribute, copy an existing, unique resource attribute, such as host.name or pod.id, as the unique instance identifier value for service.instance.id.

To define a default service.instance.id resource attribute:

1. Add a resource detection processor. Use the resource detection processor can to detect resource information from the environment. Append or override the resource value in telemetry data with this information. Configure the resource detection processor based on the environment where you've deployed the Collector. Review the resource detection processor documentation (opens in a new tab) to select the processor for your environment. For example, if the Collector is deployed on a host, the system processor is the best option to gather information about the host.

      processors:
        resourcedetection:
        detectors: [env, system]
        timeout: 2s
        override: true

2. Define a resource attribute processor. In the processors ConfigMap, define a rule to add the service.instance.id. The following example maps the host.name resource attribute to a new service.instance.id resource attribute. Depending on how resource detection is configured, your environment might have other resource attributes available, such as k8s.node.uid, which can serve as the instance identifier.

      resource/service-instance:
       attributes:
       - key: service.instance.id
         from_attribute: host.name
         action: insert

3. Add the resource detection and resource attribute processors to your metrics processors pipeline. In the service.pipelines.metrics.processors ConfigMap, add the resource attribute processor defined in the previous step:

   processors: [transform, batch, resourcedetection, resource/service-instance]

Send operational metrics about the OpenTelemetry Collector

The OpenTelemetry Collector exposes metrics about its operations using a Prometheus scrape endpoint. Observability Platform uses OpenTelemetry Collector metrics in the OpenTelemetry Ingestion & Health dashboard to describe Collector health.

To send operational metrics about your OpenTelemetry Collectors to Observability Platform:

1. Define a Prometheus receiver to scrape the endpoint receiver:

      prometheus/otel-collector-self-scrape:
      config:
        scrape_configs:
        - job_name: 'otel-collector-self-scrape'
          scrape_interval: 30s
          static_configs:
          - targets: ['0.0.0.0:8888']

2. Add the Prometheus receiver to the metrics pipeline

     metrics:
       receivers: [prometheus/otel-collector-self-scrape, otlp/chronosphere]

3. Add the metrics service to the Service ConfigMap:

      service:
        telemetry:
          metrics:
            address: "0.0.0.0:8888"

Next steps

Observability Platform should begin ingesting data. Verify the Collector is receiving metrics and traces. You can also configure head sampling to determine whether to drop a span or trace as early as possible.

If you encounter issues, see the troubleshooting page.

OpenTelemetry configuration example

The following example is the entire configuration file, containing all of the previously provided required sections:

receivers:
  # OTLP receiver
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
      http:
 
  # Prometheus receiver configured to scrape the Collector's own metrics
  prometheus/otel-collector-self-scrape:
    config:
      scrape_configs:
      - job_name: 'otel-collector-self-scrape'
        scrape_interval: 30s
        static_configs:
        - targets: ['0.0.0.0:8888']
 
exporters:
  # OTLP exporter configured to send telemetry to your Observability Platform tenant
  # Replace the endpoint and API_TOKEN with your values
  otlp/chronosphere:
    endpoint: "MY_COMPANY.chronosphere.io:443"
    timeout: 30s
    retry_on_failure:
      enabled: true
    # Valid values are snappy, gzip, zstd and none.
    compression: zstd
    headers:
      API-Token: $API_TOKEN
 
processors:
  # Detect environment information to include as telemetry attributes
  # Configure the detector from the list of available detectors:
  # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/resourcedetectionprocessor
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env, system]
    timeout: 2s
    override: true
  # Use environment information to define the `service.instance.id` attribute
  # This example maps `host.name` detected by the `resourcedetection` processor
  # to a new `service.instance.id` resource attribute
  resource/service-instance:
    attributes:
      - key: service.instance.id
        from_attribute: host.name
        action: insert
  # Add the batch processor to efficiently send telemetry
  batch:
    timeout: 1s
    send_batch_size: 1000
    send_batch_max_size: 2000
 
service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch, resourcedetection, resource/service-instance]
      exporters: [otlp/chronosphere]
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch, resourcedetection, resource/service-instance]
      exporters: [otlp/chronosphere]
    # Define a separate metrics pipeline to send the Collector's metrics to
    # Observability Platform
    metrics/internal:
     receivers: [prometheus/otel-collector-self-scrape]
     processors: [batch, resourcedetection]
     exporters: [otlp/chronosphere]