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
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp accepts telemetry data from other otelcol components and writes them over the network using the OTLP HTTP protocol.
Note
otelcol.exporter.otlphttpis a wrapper over the upstream OpenTelemetry Collectorotlphttpexporter. Bug reports or feature requests will be redirected to the upstream repository, if necessary.
You can specify multiple otelcol.exporter.otlphttp components by giving them different labels.
Usage
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "LABEL" {
client {
endpoint = "HOST:PORT"
}
}Arguments
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp supports the following arguments:
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:
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:
When setting headers, note that:
- Certain headers such as
Content-LengthandConnectionare automatically written when needed and values inheadersmay be ignored. - The
Hostheader is automatically derived from theendpointvalue. However, this automatic assignment can be overridden by explicitly setting aHostheader inheaders.
Setting disable_keep_alives to true will result in significant overhead establishing a new HTTP or HTTPS connection for every request.
Before enabling this option, consider whether changes to idle connection settings can achieve your goal.
If http2_ping_timeout is unset or set to 0s, it will default to 15s.
If http2_read_idle_timeout is unset or set to 0s, then no health check will be performed.
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 you set compression to "none" or an empty string "", the requests aren’t compressed.
cookies block
The cookies block allows the HTTP client to store cookies from server responses and reuse them in subsequent requests.
This could be useful in situations such as load balancers relying on cookies for sticky sessions and enforcing a maximum session age.
The following arguments are supported:
compression_params block
The compression_params block allows for configuration of advanced compression options.
The following arguments are supported:
For valid combinations of client.compression and client.compression_params.level, refer to the
upstream documentation.
tls block
The tls block configures TLS settings used for the connection to the HTTP server.
The following arguments are supported:
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 you set reload_interval to "0s", the certificate never reloaded.
The following pairs of arguments are mutually exclusive and can’t both be set simultaneously:
ca_pemandca_filecert_pemandcert_filekey_pemandkey_file
If cipher_suites is left blank, a safe default list is used.
Refer to the Go TLS documentation for a list of supported cipher suites.
The curve_preferences argument determines the set of elliptic curves to prefer during a handshake in preference order.
If not provided, a default list is used.
The set of elliptic curves available are X25519, P521, P256, and P384.
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:
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 HTTP server are retried.
The following arguments are supported:
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 Alloy instances.
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’s 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:
disable_high_cardinality_metrics is the Alloy 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.
Note
If configured,
disable_high_cardinality_metricsonly applies tootelcol.exporter.*andotelcol.receiver.*components.
level is the Alloy equivalent to the telemetry.metrics.level feature gate in the OpenTelemetry Collector.
Possible values are "none", "basic", "normal" and "detailed".
Exported fields
The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:
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 doesn’t 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
}
}
}Compatible components
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp 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.
