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.otlp
otelcol.exporter.otlp
accepts telemetry data from other otelcol
components
and writes them over the network using the OTLP gRPC protocol.
NOTE:
otelcol.exporter.otlp
is a wrapper over the upstream OpenTelemetry Collectorotlp
exporter. Bug reports or feature requests will be redirected to the upstream repository, if necessary.
Multiple otelcol.exporter.otlp
components can be specified by giving them
different labels.
Usage
otelcol.exporter.otlp "LABEL" {
client {
endpoint = "HOST:PORT"
}
}
Arguments
otelcol.exporter.otlp
supports the following arguments:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
timeout | duration | Time to wait before marking a request as failed. | "5s" | no |
Blocks
The following blocks are supported inside the definition of
otelcol.exporter.otlp
:
Hierarchy | Block | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
client | client | Configures the gRPC server to send telemetry data to. | yes |
client > tls | tls | Configures TLS for the gRPC client. | no |
client > keepalive | keepalive | Configures keepalive settings for the gRPC 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 |
debug_metrics | debug_metrics | Configures the metrics that this component generates to monitor its state. | 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 gRPC client used by the component.
The following arguments are supported:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
endpoint | string | host:port to send telemetry data to. | yes | |
compression | string | Compression mechanism to use for requests. | "gzip" | no |
read_buffer_size | string | Size of the read buffer the gRPC client to use for reading server responses. | no | |
write_buffer_size | string | Size of the write buffer the gRPC client to use for writing requests. | "512KiB" | no |
wait_for_ready | boolean | Waits for gRPC connection to be in the READY state before sending data. | false | no |
headers | map(string) | Additional headers to send with the request. | {} | no |
balancer_name | string | Which gRPC client-side load balancer to use for requests. | pick_first | no |
authority | string | Overrides the default :authority header in gRPC requests from the gRPC client. | 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.
The supported values for balancer_name
are listed in the gRPC documentation on Load balancing:
pick_first
: Tries to connect to the first address, uses it for all RPCs if it connects, or tries the next address if it fails (and keeps doing that until one connection is successful). Because of this, all the RPCs will be sent to the same backend.round_robin
: Connects to all the addresses it sees and sends an RPC to each backend one at a time in order. For example, the first RPC is sent to backend-1, the second RPC is sent to backend-2, and the third RPC is sent to backend-1.
The :authority
header in gRPC specifies the host to which the request is being sent.
It’s similar to the Host
header in HTTP requests.
By default, the value for :authority
is derived from the endpoint URL used for the gRPC call.
Overriding :authority
could be useful when routing traffic using a proxy like Envoy, which makes routing decisions based on the value of the :authority
header.
An HTTP proxy can be configured through the following environment variables:
HTTPS_PROXY
NO_PROXY
The HTTPS_PROXY
environment variable specifies a URL to use for proxying
requests. Connections to the proxy are established via the HTTP CONNECT
method.
The NO_PROXY
environment variable is an optional list of comma-separated
hostnames for which the HTTPS proxy should not be used. Each hostname can be
provided as an IP address (1.2.3.4
), an IP address in CIDR notation
(1.2.3.4/8
), a domain name (example.com
), or *
. A domain name matches
that domain and all subdomains. A domain name with a leading “.”
(.example.com
) matches subdomains only. NO_PROXY
is only read when
HTTPS_PROXY
is set.
Because otelcol.exporter.otlp
uses gRPC, the configured proxy server must be
able to handle and proxy HTTP/2 traffic.
tls block
The tls
block configures TLS settings used for the connection to the gRPC
server.
The following arguments are supported:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
ca_file | string | Path to the CA file. | no | |
ca_pem | string | CA PEM-encoded text to validate the server with. | no | |
cert_file | string | Path to the TLS certificate. | no | |
cert_pem | string | Certificate PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
insecure_skip_verify | boolean | Ignores insecure server TLS certificates. | no | |
include_system_ca_certs_pool | boolean | Whether to load the system certificate authorities pool alongside the certificate authority. | false | no |
insecure | boolean | Disables TLS when connecting to the configured server. | no | |
key_file | string | Path to the TLS certificate key. | no | |
key_pem | secret | Key PEM-encoded text for client authentication. | no | |
max_version | string | Maximum acceptable TLS version for connections. | "TLS 1.3" | no |
min_version | string | Minimum acceptable TLS version for connections. | "TLS 1.2" | no |
cipher_suites | list(string) | A list of TLS cipher suites that the TLS transport can use. | [] | no |
reload_interval | duration | The duration after which the certificate is reloaded. | "0s" | no |
server_name | string | Verifies the hostname of server certificates when set. | no |
If the server doesn’t support TLS, you must set the insecure
argument 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 never reloaded.
The following pairs of arguments are mutually exclusive and can’t both be set simultaneously:
ca_pem
andca_file
cert_pem
andcert_file
key_pem
andkey_file
If cipher_suites
is left blank, a safe default list is used.
See the Go TLS documentation for a list of supported cipher suites.
NOTE:
otelcol.exporter.otlp
uses gRPC, which does not allow you to send sensitive credentials (likeauth
) over insecure channels. Sending sensitive credentials over insecure non-TLS connections is supported by non-gRPC exporters such as otelcol.exporter.otlphttp.
keepalive block
The keepalive
block configures keepalive settings for gRPC client
connections.
The following arguments are supported:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
ping_wait | duration | How often to ping the server after no activity. | no | |
ping_response_timeout | duration | Time to wait before closing inactive connections if the server does not respond to a ping. | no | |
ping_without_stream | boolean | Send pings even if there is no active stream request. | no |
sending_queue block
The sending_queue
block configures an in-memory buffer of batches before data is sent
to the gRPC 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 the same time. | 1000 | 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 doesn’t exceed the configured queue_size
.
queue_size
determines how long an endpoint outage is tolerated.
Assuming 100 requests/second, the default queue size 1000
provides about 10 seconds of outage tolerance.
To calculate the correct value for queue_size
, multiply the average number of outgoing requests per second by the time in seconds that outages are tolerated. A very high value can cause Out Of Memory (OOM) kills.
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 gRPC 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_elapsed_time | duration | Maximum time to wait before discarding a failed batch. | "5m" | no |
max_interval | duration | Maximum time to wait between retries. | "30s" | no |
multiplier | number | Factor to grow wait time before retrying. | 1.5 | no |
randomization_factor | number | Factor to randomize wait time before retrying. | 0.5 | 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 by the factor specified by the multiplier
argument, which must be greater than 1.0
.
The max_interval
argument specifies the upper bound of how long to wait between retries.
The randomization_factor
argument is useful for adding jitter between retrying agents.
If randomization_factor
is greater than 0
, the wait time before retries is multiplied by a random factor in the range [ I - randomization_factor * I, I + randomization_factor * I]
, where I
is the current interval.
If a batch hasn’t been 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.
debug_metrics block
The debug_metrics
block configures the metrics that this component generates to monitor its state.
The following arguments are supported:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
disable_high_cardinality_metrics | boolean | Whether to disable certain high cardinality metrics. | true | no |
disable_high_cardinality_metrics
is the Grafana Agent equivalent to the telemetry.disableHighCardinalityMetrics
feature gate in the OpenTelemetry Collector.
It removes attributes that could cause high cardinality metrics.
For example, attributes with IP addresses and port numbers in metrics about HTTP and gRPC connections are removed.
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.otlp
is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid
configuration.
Debug information
otelcol.exporter.otlp
does not expose any component-specific debug
information.
Debug metrics
exporter_sent_spans_ratio_total
(counter): Number of spans successfully sent to destination.exporter_send_failed_spans_ratio_total
(counter): Number of spans in failed attempts to send to destination.exporter_queue_capacity_ratio
(gauge): Fixed capacity of the retry queue (in batches)exporter_queue_size_ratio
(gauge): Current size of the retry queue (in batches)rpc_client_duration_milliseconds
(histogram): Measures the duration of inbound RPC.rpc_client_request_size_bytes
(histogram): Measures size of RPC request messages (uncompressed).rpc_client_requests_per_rpc
(histogram): Measures the number of messages received per RPC. Should be 1 for all non-streaming RPCs.rpc_client_response_size_bytes
(histogram): Measures size of RPC response messages (uncompressed).rpc_client_responses_per_rpc
(histogram): Measures the number of messages received per RPC. Should be 1 for all non-streaming RPCs.
Examples
The following examples show you how to create an exporter to send data to different destinations.
Send data to a local Tempo instance
You can create an exporter that sends your data to a local Grafana Tempo instance without TLS:
otelcol.exporter.otlp "tempo" {
client {
endpoint = "tempo:4317"
tls {
insecure = true
insecure_skip_verify = true
}
}
}
Send data to a managed service
You can create an otlp
exporter that sends your data to a managed service, for example, Grafana Cloud. The Tempo username and Grafana Cloud API Key are injected in this example through environment variables.
otelcol.exporter.otlp "grafana_cloud_tempo" {
client {
endpoint = "tempo-xxx.grafana.net/tempo:443"
auth = otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud_tempo.handler
}
}
otelcol.auth.basic "grafana_cloud_tempo" {
username = env("TEMPO_USERNAME")
password = env("GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY")
}
Compatible components
otelcol.exporter.otlp
has exports that can be consumed by the following components:
- Components that consume OpenTelemetry
otelcol.Consumer
Note
Connecting some components may not be sensible or components may require further configuration to make the connection work correctly. Refer to the linked documentation for more details.