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Documentation Grafana documentation Data sources Tempo Configure Tempo

Configure the Tempo data source

To configure basic settings for the Tempo data source, complete the following steps:

1. Click Connections in the left-side menu.

2. Under Your connections, click Data sources.

3. Enter Tempo in the search bar.

4. Select Tempo.

5. On the Settings tab, set the data source’s basic configuration options:

   Name	Description
   Name	Sets the name you use to refer to the data source in panels and queries.
   Default	Sets the data source that’s pre-selected for new panels.
   URL	Sets the URL of the Tempo instance, such as http://tempo.
   Basic Auth	Enables basic authentication to the Tempo data source.
   User	Sets the user name for basic authentication.
   Password	Sets the password for basic authentication.

You can also configure settings specific to the Tempo data source.

This video explains how to add data sources, including Loki, Tempo, and Mimir, to Grafana and Grafana Cloud. Tempo data source set up starts at 4:58 in the video.

Trace to logs

The Trace to logs setting configures trace to logs that’s available when you integrate Grafana with Tempo.

There are two ways to configure the trace to logs feature:

• Use a simplified configuration with default query, or
• Configure a custom query where you can use a template language to interpolate variables from the trace or span.

Use a simple configuration

1. Select the target data source from the drop-down list.

   You can also click Open advanced data source picker to see more options, including adding a data source.

2. Set start and end time shift. As the logs timestamps may not exactly match the timestamps of the spans in trace it may be necessary to search in larger or shifted time range to find the desired logs.

3. Select which tags to use in the logs query. The tags you configure must be present in the span’s attributes or resources for a trace to logs span link to appear. You can optionally configure a new name for the tag. This is useful, for example, if the tag has dots in the name and the target data source does not allow using dots in labels. In that case, you can for example remap http.status (the span attribute) to http_status (the data source field). “Data source” in this context can refer to Loki, or another log data source.

4. Optional: If your logs consistently trace or span IDs, you can use one or both of the Filter by trace ID and Filter by span ID settings.

Configure a custom query

1. Select the target data source from the drop-down list.

   You can also click Open advanced data source picker to see more options, including adding a data source.

2. Set start and end time shift. As the logs timestamps may not exactly match the timestamps of the spans in the trace it may be necessary to widen or shift the time range to find the desired logs.

3. Optional: Select tags to map. These tags can be used in the custom query with ${__tags} variable. This variable interpolates the mapped tags as list in an appropriate syntax for the data source. Only the tags that were present in the span are included; tags that aren’t present are omitted You can also configure a new name for the tag. This is useful in cases where the tag has dots in the name and the target data source doesn’t allow dots in labels. For example, you can remap http.status to http_status. If you don’t map any tags here, you can still use any tag in the query, for example, method="${__span.tags.method}". You can learn more about custom query variables here.

4. Skip Filter by trace ID and Filter by span ID settings as these cannot be used with a custom query.

5. Switch on Use custom query.

6. Specify a custom query to be used to query the logs. You can use various variables to make that query relevant for current span. The link will only be shown only if all the variables are interpolated with non-empty values to prevent creating an invalid query.

Configure trace to logs

The following table describes the ways in which you can configure your trace to logs settings:

Trace to metrics

The Trace to metrics setting configures the trace to metrics feature available when integrating Grafana with Tempo.

There are two ways to configure the trace to metrics feature:

• Use a basic configuration with a default query, or
• Configure one or more custom queries where you can use a template language to interpolate variables from the trace or span.

Refer to the Trace to metrics configuration options section to learn about the available options.

Set up a simple configuration

To use a simple configuration, follow these steps:

1. Select a metrics data source from the Data source drop-down.

2. Optional: Change Span start time shift and Span end time shift. You can change one or both of these settings. The default start time shift is -2 minutes and 2 minutes for end time shift.

3. Optional: Choose any tags to use in the query. If left blank, the default values of cluster, hostname, namespace, pod, service.name and service.namespace are used.

   The tags you configure must be present in the spans attributes or resources for a trace to metrics span link to appear. You can optionally configure a new name for the tag. This is useful for example if the tag has dots in the name and the target data source doesn’t allow using dots in labels. In that case you can for example remap service.name to service_name.

4. Don’t select Add query.

5. Select Save and Test.

Set up custom queries

To use custom queries, you need to configure the tags you’d like to include in the linked queries. For each tag, the key is the span attribute name. In cases where the attribute name would result in an invalid metrics query or doesn’t exactly match the desired label name, you can enter the label name as the second value. For example, you could map the attribute k8s.pod to the label pod.

You can interpolate the configured tags using the $__tags keyword. For example, when you configure the query requests_total{$__tags} with the tags k8s.pod=pod and cluster, it results in requests_total{pod="nginx-554b9", cluster="us-east-1"}. The label values are dynamically inserted based on the span attributes’ values.

You can link to any metric you’d like, but metrics for span durations, counts, and errors filtered by service or span are a great starting point.

To use custom queries with the configuration, follow these steps:

1. Select a metrics data source from the Data source drop-down.

2. Optional: Choose any tags to use in the query. If left blank, the default values of cluster, hostname, namespace, pod, service.name and service.namespace are used.

   These tags can be used in the custom query with ${__tags} variable. This variable interpolates the mapped tags as list in an appropriate syntax for the data source and will only include the tags that were present in the span omitting those that weren’t present. You can optionally configure a new name for the tag. This is useful in cases where the tag has dots in the name and the target data source doesn’t allow using dots in labels. For example, you can remap service.name to service_name in such a case. If you don’t map any tags here, you can still use any tag in the query like this method="${__span.tags.method}". You can learn more about custom query variables here.

3. Click Add query to add a custom query.

4. Specify a custom query to be used to query metrics data.

   Each linked query consists of:

   • Link Label: (Optional) Descriptive label for the linked query.
   • Query: The query ran when navigating from a trace to the metrics data source. Interpolate tags using the $__tags keyword. For example, when you configure the query requests_total{$__tags}with the tags k8s.pod=pod and cluster, the result looks like requests_total{pod="nginx-554b9", cluster="us-east-1"}.

5. Select Save and Test.

Trace to metrics configuration options

Trace to profiles

Using Trace to profiles, you can use Grafana’s ability to correlate different signals by adding the functionality to link between traces and profiles.

Trace to profiles lets you link your Grafana Pyroscope data source to tracing data. When configured, this connection lets you run queries from a trace span into the profile data.

There are two ways to configure the trace to profiles feature:

• Use a basic configuration with default query, or
• Configure a custom query where you can use a template language to interpolate variables from the trace or span.

To use trace to profiles, navigate to Explore and query a trace. Each span links to your queries. Clicking a link runs the query in a split panel. If tags are configured, Grafana dynamically inserts the span attribute values into the query. The query runs over the time range of the (span start time - 60) to (span end time + 60 seconds).

To use trace to profiles, you must have a configured Grafana Pyroscope data source. For more information, refer to the Grafana Pyroscope data source documentation.

Embedded flame graphs are also inserted into each span details section that has a linked profile. This lets you see resource consumption in a flame graph visualization for each span without having to navigate away from the current view. Hover over a particular block in the flame graph to see more details about the consumed resources.

Configuration options

The following table describes options for configuring your Trace to profiles settings:

Use a basic configuration

To use a basic configuration, follow these steps:

1. In the left menu, select Connections > Data sources.

2. Select your configured Tempo data source from the Data source list.

3. Scroll down to the Traces to profiles section.

4. Select a Pyroscope data source in the Data source drop-down.

5. Optional: Add one or more tags to use in the query. If left blank, the default values of service.name and service.namespace are used.

   The tags you configure must be present in the spans attributes or resources for a trace-to-profiles span link to appear.

   You can optionally configure a new name for the tag. This is useful if the tag has dots in the name and the target data source doesn’t allow dots in labels. In that case, you can remap service.name to service_name.

6. Select one or more profile types to use in the query. Select the drop-down and choose options from the menu.

   The profile type or app must be selected for the query to be valid. Grafana doesn’t show any data if the profile type or app isn’t selected when a query runs.

7. Select Save and Test.

If you have configured a Pyroscope data source and no profile data is available or the Profiles for this span button and the embedded flame graph isn’t visible, verify that the pyroscope.profile.id key-value pair exists in your span tags.

Configure a custom query

To use a custom query with the configuration, follow these steps:

1. In the left menu, select Connections > Data sources.

2. Select a configured Tempo data source from the Data source list.

3. Scroll down to the Traces to profiles section.

4. Select a Pyroscope data source in the Data source drop-down.

5. Optional: Choose any tags to use in the query. If left blank, the default values of service.name and service.namespace are used.

   These tags can be used in the custom query with ${__tags} variable. This variable interpolates the mapped tags as list in an appropriate syntax for the data source. Only the tags that were present in the span are included; tags that aren’t present are omitted. You can also configure a new name for the tag. This is useful in cases where the tag has dots in the name and the target data source doesn’t allow using dots in labels. For example, you can remap service.name to service_name. If you don’t map any tags here, you can still use any tag in the query, for example: method="${__span.tags.method}". You can learn more about custom query variables here.

6. Select one or more profile types to use in the query. Select the drop-down and choose options from the menu.

7. Switch on Use custom query to enter a custom query.

8. Specify a custom query to be used to query profile data. You can use various variables to make that query relevant for current span. The link is shown only if all the variables are interpolated with non-empty values to prevent creating an invalid query. You can interpolate the configured tags using the $__tags keyword.

9. Select Save and Test.

Custom query variables

To use a variable in your trace to logs, metrics or profiles you need to wrap it in ${}. For example, ${__span.name}.

Service Graph

The Service Graph setting configures the Service Graph feature.

Configure the Data source setting to define in which Prometheus instance the Service Graph data is stored.

To use the Service Graph, refer to the Service Graph documentation.

Node Graph

The Node Graph setting enables the node graph visualization, which is disabled by default.

Once enabled, Grafana displays the node graph above the trace view.

Tempo search

The Search setting configures Tempo search.

You can configure the Hide search setting to hide the search query option in Explore if search is not configured in the Tempo instance.

TraceID query

The TraceID query setting modifies how TraceID queries are run. The time range can be used when there are performance issues or timeouts since it will narrow down the search to the defined range. This setting is disabled by default.

You can configure this setting as follows:

Span bar

The Span bar setting helps you display additional information in the span bar row.

You can choose one of three options:

Provision the data source

You can define and configure the Tempo data source in YAML files as part of Grafana’s provisioning system. For more information about provisioning and available configuration options, refer to Provisioning Grafana.

Example provision YAML file:

yaml Copy

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Tempo
    type: tempo
    uid: EbPG8fYoz
    url: http://localhost:3200
    access: proxy
    basicAuth: false
    jsonData:
      tracesToLogsV2:
        # Field with an internal link pointing to a logs data source in Grafana.
        # datasourceUid value must match the uid value of the logs data source.
        datasourceUid: 'loki'
        spanStartTimeShift: '-1h'
        spanEndTimeShift: '1h'
        tags: ['job', 'instance', 'pod', 'namespace']
        filterByTraceID: false
        filterBySpanID: false
        customQuery: true
        query: 'method="$${__span.tags.method}"'
      tracesToMetrics:
        datasourceUid: 'prom'
        spanStartTimeShift: '1h'
        spanEndTimeShift: '-1h'
        tags: [{ key: 'service.name', value: 'service' }, { key: 'job' }]
        queries:
          - name: 'Sample query'
            query: 'sum(rate(traces_spanmetrics_latency_bucket{$$__tags}[5m]))'
      tracesToProfiles:
        datasourceUid: 'grafana-pyroscope-datasource'
        tags: ['job', 'instance', 'pod', 'namespace']
        profileTypeId: 'process_cpu:cpu:nanoseconds:cpu:nanoseconds'
        customQuery: true
        query: 'method="$${__span.tags.method}"'
      serviceMap:
        datasourceUid: 'prometheus'
      nodeGraph:
        enabled: true
      search:
        hide: false
      traceQuery:
        timeShiftEnabled: true
        spanStartTimeShift: '1h'
        spanEndTimeShift: '-1h'
      spanBar:
        type: 'Tag'
        tag: 'http.path'