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.

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp

Open source

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp accepts telemetry data from other otelcol components and writes them over the network using the OTLP HTTP protocol.

NOTE: otelcol.exporter.otlphttp is a wrapper over the upstream OpenTelemetry Collector otlphttp exporter. Bug reports or feature requests will be redirected to the upstream repository, if necessary.

Multiple otelcol.exporter.otlphttp components can be specified by giving them different labels.

Usage

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "LABEL" {
  client {
    endpoint = "HOST:PORT"
  }
}

Arguments

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp supports the following arguments:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`metrics_endpoint`	`string`	The endpoint to send metrics to.	`client.endpoint + "/v1/metrics"`	no
`logs_endpoint`	`string`	The endpoint to send logs to.	`client.endpoint + "/v1/logs"`	no
`traces_endpoint`	`string`	The endpoint to send traces to.	`client.endpoint + "/v1/traces"`	no

The default value depends on the endpoint field set in the required client block. If set, these arguments override the client.endpoint field for the corresponding signal.

Blocks

The following blocks are supported inside the definition of otelcol.exporter.otlphttp:

Hierarchy	Block	Description	Required
client	client	Configures the HTTP server to send telemetry data to.	yes
client > tls	tls	Configures TLS for the HTTP client.	no
sending_queue	sending_queue	Configures batching of data before sending.	no
retry_on_failure	retry_on_failure	Configures retry mechanism for failed requests.	no

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

client block

The client block configures the HTTP client used by the component.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`endpoint`	`string`	The target URL to send telemetry data to.		yes
`read_buffer_size`	`string`	Size of the read buffer the HTTP client uses for reading server responses.	`0`	no
`write_buffer_size`	`string`	Size of the write buffer the HTTP client uses for writing requests.	`"512KiB"`	no
`timeout`	`duration`	Time to wait before marking a request as failed.	`"30s"`	no
`headers`	`map(string)`	Additional headers to send with the request.	`{}`	no
`compression`	`string`	Compression mechanism to use for requests.	`"gzip"`	no
`max_idle_conns`	`int`	Limits the number of idle HTTP connections the client can keep open.	`100`	no
`max_idle_conns_per_host`	`int`	Limits the number of idle HTTP connections the host can keep open.	`0`	no
`max_conns_per_host`	`int`	Limits the total (dialing,active, and idle) number of connections per host.	`0`	no
`idle_conn_timeout`	`duration`	Time to wait before an idle connection closes itself.	`"90s"`	no
`auth`	`capsule(otelcol.Handler)`	Handler from an `otelcol.auth` component to use for authenticating requests.		no

By default, requests are compressed with gzip. The compression argument controls which compression mechanism to use. Supported strings are:

"gzip"
"zlib"
"deflate"
"snappy"
"zstd"

If compression is set to "none" or an empty string "", no compression is used.

tls block

The tls block configures TLS settings used for the connection to the HTTP server.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`ca_pem`	`string`	CA PEM-encoded text to validate the server with.		no
`ca_file`	`string`	Path to the CA file.		no
`cert_pem`	`string`	Certificate PEM-encoded text for client authentication.		no
`cert_file`	`string`	Path to the TLS certificate.		no
`key_pem`	`secret`	Key PEM-encoded text for client authentication.		no
`key_file`	`string`	Path to the TLS certificate key.		no
`min_version`	`string`	Minimum acceptable TLS version for connections.	`"TLS 1.2"`	no
`max_version`	`string`	Maximum acceptable TLS version for connections.	`"TLS 1.3"`	no
`reload_interval`	`duration`	The duration after which the certificate will be reloaded.	`"0s"`	no
`insecure`	`boolean`	Disables TLS when connecting to the configured server.		no
`insecure_skip_verify`	`boolean`	Ignores insecure server TLS certificates.		no
`server_name`	`string`	Verifies the hostname of server certificates when set.		no

If the server doesn’t support TLS, the tls block must be provided with the insecure argument set to true. To disable tls for connections to the server, set the insecure argument to true.

If reload_interval is set to "0s", the certificate will never be reloaded.

The following pairs of arguments are mutually exclusive and cannot both be set simultaneously:

ca_pem and ca_file
cert_pem and cert_file
key_pem and key_file

sending_queue block

The sending_queue block configures an in-memory buffer of batches before data is sent to the HTTP server.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`enabled`	`boolean`	Enables an in-memory buffer before sending data to the client.	`true`	no
`num_consumers`	`number`	Number of readers to send batches written to the queue in parallel.	`10`	no
`queue_size`	`number`	Maximum number of unwritten batches allowed in the queue at once.	`5000`	no

When enabled is true, data is first written to an in-memory buffer before sending it to the configured server. Batches sent to the component’s input exported field are added to the buffer as long as the number of unsent batches does not exceed the configured queue_size.

queue_size is used to determine how long an endpoint outage is tolerated for. Assuming 100 requests/second, the default queue size 5000 provides about 50 seconds of outage tolerance. To calculate the correct value for queue_size, multiply the average number of outgoing requests per second by the amount of time in seconds that outages should be tolerated for.

The num_consumers argument controls how many readers read from the buffer and send data in parallel. Larger values of num_consumers allow data to be sent more quickly at the expense of increased network traffic.

retry_on_failure block

The retry_on_failure block configures how failed requests to the HTTP server are retried.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`enabled`	`boolean`	Enables retrying failed requests.	`true`	no
`initial_interval`	`duration`	Initial time to wait before retrying a failed request.	`"5s"`	no
`max_interval`	`duration`	Maximum time to wait between retries.	`"30s"`	no
`max_elapsed_time`	`duration`	Maximum amount of time to wait before discarding a failed batch.	`"5m"`	no

When enabled is true, failed batches are retried after a given interval. The initial_interval argument specifies how long to wait before the first retry attempt. If requests continue to fail, the time to wait before retrying increases exponentially. The max_interval argument specifies the upper bound of how long to wait between retries.

If a batch has not sent successfully, it is discarded after the time specified by max_elapsed_time elapses. If max_elapsed_time is set to "0s", failed requests are retried forever until they succeed.

Exported fields

The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:

Name	Type	Description
`input`	`otelcol.Consumer`	A value that other components can use to send telemetry data to.

input accepts otelcol.Consumer data for any telemetry signal (metrics, logs, or traces).

Component health

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid configuration.

Debug information

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp does not expose any component-specific debug information.

Example

This example creates an exporter to send data to a locally running Grafana Tempo without TLS:

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "tempo" {
    client {
        endpoint = "http://tempo:4317"
        tls {
            insecure             = true
            insecure_skip_verify = true
        }
    }
}

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otelcol.exporter.otlphttp

Usage

Arguments

Blocks

client block

tls block

sending_queue block

retry_on_failure block

Exported fields

Component health

Debug information

Example

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