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Caution

Grafana Alloy is the new name for our distribution of the OTel collector. Grafana Agent has been deprecated and is in Long-Term Support (LTS) through October 31, 2025. Grafana Agent will reach an End-of-Life (EOL) on November 1, 2025. Read more about why we recommend migrating to Grafana Alloy.

Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Open source

otelcol.receiver.opencensus

otelcol.receiver.opencensus accepts telemetry data via gRPC or HTTP using the OpenCensus format and forwards it to other otelcol.* components.

NOTE: otelcol.receiver.opencensus is a wrapper over the upstream OpenTelemetry Collector opencensus receiver from the otelcol-contrib distribution. Bug reports or feature requests will be redirected to the upstream repository, if necessary.

Multiple otelcol.receiver.opencensus components can be specified by giving them different labels.

Usage

river
otelcol.receiver.opencensus "LABEL" {
  output {
    metrics = [...]
    logs    = [...]
    traces  = [...]
  }
}

Arguments

otelcol.receiver.opencensus supports the following arguments:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
cors_allowed_originslist(string)A list of allowed Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) origins.no
endpointstringhost:port to listen for traffic on."0.0.0.0:4317"no
transportstringTransport to use for the gRPC server."tcp"no
max_recv_msg_sizestringMaximum size of messages the server will accept. 0 disables a limit.no
max_concurrent_streamsnumberLimit the number of concurrent streaming RPC calls.no
read_buffer_sizestringSize of the read buffer the gRPC server will use for reading from clients."512KiB"no
write_buffer_sizestringSize of the write buffer the gRPC server will use for writing to clients.no
include_metadatabooleanPropagate incoming connection metadata to downstream consumers.no

cors_allowed_origins are the allowed CORS origins for HTTP/JSON requests. An empty list means that CORS is not enabled at all. A wildcard (*) can be used to match any origin or one or more characters of an origin.

The “endpoint” parameter is the same for both gRPC and HTTP/JSON, as the protocol is recognized and processed accordingly.

To write traces with HTTP/JSON, POST to [address]/v1/trace. The JSON message format parallels the gRPC protobuf format. For details, refer to its OpenApi specification.

Note that max_recv_msg_size, read_buffer_size and write_buffer_size are formatted in a way so that the units are included in the string, such as “512KiB” or “1024KB”.

Blocks

The following blocks are supported inside the definition of otelcol.receiver.opencensus:

HierarchyBlockDescriptionRequired
tlstlsConfigures TLS for the gRPC server.no
keepalivekeepaliveConfigures keepalive settings for the configured server.no
keepalive > server_parametersserver_parametersServer parameters used to configure keepalive settings.no
keepalive > enforcement_policyenforcement_policyEnforcement policy for keepalive settings.no
outputoutputConfigures where to send received telemetry data.yes

The > symbol indicates deeper levels of nesting. For example, grpc > tls refers to a tls block defined inside a grpc block.

tls block

The tls block configures TLS settings used for a server. If the tls block isn’t provided, TLS won’t be used for connections to the server.

The following arguments are supported:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
ca_filestringPath to the CA file.no
cert_filestringPath to the TLS certificate.no
key_filestringPath to the TLS certificate key.no
min_versionstringMinimum acceptable TLS version for connections."TLS 1.2"no
max_versionstringMaximum acceptable TLS version for connections."TLS 1.3"no
reload_intervaldurationFrequency to reload the certificates.no
client_ca_filestringPath to the CA file used to authenticate client certificates.no

keepalive block

The keepalive block configures keepalive settings for connections to a gRPC server.

keepalive doesn’t support any arguments and is configured fully through inner blocks.

server_parameters block

The server_parameters block controls keepalive and maximum age settings for gRPC servers.

The following arguments are supported:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
max_connection_idledurationMaximum age for idle connections."infinity"no
max_connection_agedurationMaximum age for non-idle connections."infinity"no
max_connection_age_gracedurationTime to wait before forcibly closing connections."infinity"no
timedurationHow often to ping inactive clients to check for liveness."2h"no
timeoutdurationTime to wait before closing inactive clients that do not respond to liveness checks."20s"no

enforcement_policy block

The enforcement_policy block configures the keepalive enforcement policy for gRPC servers. The server will close connections from clients that violate the configured policy.

The following arguments are supported:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
min_timedurationMinimum time clients should wait before sending a keepalive ping."5m"no
permit_without_streambooleanAllow clients to send keepalive pings when there are no active streams.falseno

output block

The output block configures a set of components to forward resulting telemetry data to.

The following arguments are supported:

NameTypeDescriptionDefaultRequired
metricslist(otelcol.Consumer)List of consumers to send metrics to.[]no
logslist(otelcol.Consumer)List of consumers to send logs to.[]no
traceslist(otelcol.Consumer)List of consumers to send traces to.[]no

The output block must be specified, but all of its arguments are optional. By default, telemetry data is dropped. To send telemetry data to other components, configure the metrics, logs, and traces arguments accordingly.

Exported fields

otelcol.receiver.opencensus does not export any fields.

Component health

otelcol.receiver.opencensus is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid configuration.

Debug information

otelcol.receiver.opencensus does not expose any component-specific debug information.

Example

This example forwards received telemetry data through a batch processor before finally sending it to an OTLP-capable endpoint:

river
otelcol.receiver.opencensus "default" {
	cors_allowed_origins = ["https://*.test.com", "https://test.com"]

	endpoint  = "0.0.0.0:9090"
	transport = "tcp"

	max_recv_msg_size      = "32KB"
	max_concurrent_streams = "16"
	read_buffer_size       = "1024KB"
	write_buffer_size      = "1024KB"
	include_metadata       = true

	tls {
		cert_file = "test.crt"
		key_file  = "test.key"
	}

	keepalive {
		server_parameters {
			max_connection_idle      = "11s"
			max_connection_age       = "12s"
			max_connection_age_grace = "13s"
			time                     = "30s"
			timeout                  = "5s"
		}

		enforcement_policy {
			min_time              = "10s"
			permit_without_stream = true
		}
	}

	output {
		metrics = [otelcol.processor.batch.default.input]
		logs    = [otelcol.processor.batch.default.input]
		traces  = [otelcol.processor.batch.default.input]
	}
}

otelcol.processor.batch "default" {
	output {
		metrics = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input]
		logs    = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input]
		traces  = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input]
	}
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "default" {
	client {
		endpoint = env("OTLP_ENDPOINT")
	}
}