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.receiver.otlp

Open source

otelcol.receiver.otlp

otelcol.receiver.otlp accepts OTLP-formatted data over the network and forwards it to other otelcol.* components.

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

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

Usage

otelcol.receiver.otlp "LABEL" {
  grpc { ... }
  http { ... }

  output {
    metrics = [...]
    logs    = [...]
    traces  = [...]
  }
}

Arguments

otelcol.receiver.otlp doesn’t support any arguments and is configured fully through inner blocks.

Blocks

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

Hierarchy	Block	Description	Required
grpc	grpc	Configures the gRPC server to receive telemetry data.	no
grpc > tls	tls	Configures TLS for the gRPC server.	no
grpc > keepalive	keepalive	Configures keepalive settings for the configured server.	no
grpc > keepalive > server_parameters	server_parameters	Server parameters used to configure keepalive settings.	no
grpc > keepalive > enforcement_policy	enforcement_policy	Enforcement policy for keepalive settings.	no
http	http	Configures the HTTP server to receive telemetry data.	no
http > tls	tls	Configures TLS for the HTTP server.	no
http > cors	cors	Configures CORS for the HTTP server.	no
output	output	Configures 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.

grpc block

The grpc block configures the gRPC server used by the component. If the grpc block isn’t provided, a gRPC server isn’t started.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`endpoint`	`string`	`host:port` to listen for traffic on.	`"0.0.0.0:4317"`	no
`transport`	`string`	Transport to use for the gRPC server.	`"tcp"`	no
`max_recv_msg_size`	`string`	Maximum size of messages the server will accept. 0 disables a limit.		no
`max_concurrent_streams`	`number`	Limit the number of concurrent streaming RPC calls.		no
`read_buffer_size`	`string`	Size of the read buffer the gRPC server will use for reading from clients.	`"512KiB"`	no
`write_buffer_size`	`string`	Size of the write buffer the gRPC server will use for writing to clients.		no
`include_metadata`	`boolean`	Propagate incoming connection metadata to downstream consumers.		no

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:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`ca_file`	`string`	Path to the CA file.		no
`cert_file`	`string`	Path to the TLS certificate.		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`	Frequency to reload the certificates.		no
`client_ca_file`	`string`	Path 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:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`max_connection_idle`	`duration`	Maximum age for idle connections.	`"infinity"`	no
`max_connection_age`	`duration`	Maximum age for non-idle connections.	`"infinity"`	no
`max_connection_age_grace`	`duration`	Time to wait before forcibly closing connections.	`"infinity"`	no
`time`	`duration`	How often to ping inactive clients to check for liveness.	`"2h"`	no
`timeout`	`duration`	Time 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:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`min_time`	`duration`	Minimum time clients should wait before sending a keepalive ping.	`"5m"`	no
`permit_without_stream`	`boolean`	Allow clients to send keepalive pings when there are no active streams.	`false`	no

http block

The http block configures the HTTP server used by the component. If the http block isn’t specified, an HTTP server isn’t started.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`endpoint`	`string`	`host:port` to listen for traffic on.	`"0.0.0.0:4318"`	no
`max_request_body_size`	`string`	Maximum request body size the server will allow. No limit when unset.		no
`include_metadata`	`boolean`	Propagate incoming connection metadata to downstream consumers.		no

cors block

The cors block configures CORS settings for an HTTP server.

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`allowed_origins`	`list(string)`	Allowed values for the `Origin` header.		no
`allowed_headers`	`list(string)`	Accepted headers from CORS requests.	`["X-Requested-With"]`	no
`max_age`	`number`	Configures the `Access-Control-Max-Age` response header.		no

The allowed_headers argument specifies which headers are acceptable from a CORS request. The following headers are always implicitly allowed:

Accept
Accept-Language
Content-Type
Content-Language

If allowed_headers includes "*", all headers are permitted.

output block

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

The following arguments are supported:

Name	Type	Description	Default	Required
`metrics`	`list(otelcol.Consumer)`	List of consumers to send metrics to.	`[]`	no
`logs`	`list(otelcol.Consumer)`	List of consumers to send logs to.	`[]`	no
`traces`	`list(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.otlp does not export any fields.

Component health

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

Debug information

otelcol.receiver.otlp 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:

otelcol.receiver.otlp "default" {
  http {}
  grpc {}

  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")
  }
}

Compression

otelcol.receiver.otlp supports gzip for compression.

Was this page helpful?

Create a GitHub issue

Email docs@grafana.com

Help and support

Community

Feedback

Relevant sources:

Feedback

otelcol.receiver.otlp

Usage

Arguments