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.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 Collectoropencensus
receiver from theotelcol-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
otelcol.receiver.opencensus "LABEL" {
output {
metrics = [...]
logs = [...]
traces = [...]
}
}
Arguments
otelcol.receiver.opencensus
supports the following arguments:
Name | Type | Description | Default | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
cors_allowed_origins | list(string) | A list of allowed Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) origins. | no | |
endpoint | string | host:port to listen for traffic on. | "0.0.0.0:55678" | 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 |
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
:
Hierarchy | Block | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
tls | tls | Configures TLS for the gRPC server. | no |
keepalive | keepalive | Configures keepalive settings for the configured server. | no |
keepalive > server_parameters | server_parameters | Server parameters used to configure keepalive settings. | no |
keepalive > enforcement_policy | enforcement_policy | Enforcement policy for keepalive settings. | no |
debug_metrics | debug_metrics | Configures the metrics that this component generates to monitor its state. | 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.
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 | |
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.
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 |
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.
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 |
---|---|---|---|---|
logs | list(otelcol.Consumer) | List of consumers to send logs to. | [] | no |
metrics | list(otelcol.Consumer) | List of consumers to send metrics to. | [] | no |
traces | list(otelcol.Consumer) | List of consumers to send traces to. | [] | no |
You must specify the output
block, but all its arguments are optional.
By default, telemetry data is dropped.
Configure the metrics
, logs
, and traces
arguments accordingly to send telemetry data to other components.
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:
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")
}
}
Compatible components
otelcol.receiver.opencensus
can accept arguments from the following components:
- Components that export 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.