Note: These parameter names are very likely to change over time, so please check back here when trying out a new version! Please report any bugs or unexpected behavior you find.
- Exporters
- Trace context propagation
- OpenTelemetry Resource
- Peer service name
- Batch span processor
- Trace config
- Interval metric reader
- Customizing the OpenTelemetry SDK
- Suppressing specific auto-instrumentation
The following configuration properties are common to all exporters:
| System property | Environment variable | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.exporter | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER | The exporter to be used for tracing. Default is otlp. none means no exporter. |
| otel.metrics.exporter | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER | The exporter to be used for metrics. Default is otlp. none means no exporter. |
A simple wrapper for the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) span and metric exporters of opentelemetry-java.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.exporter=otlp (default) | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp | Select the OpenTelemetry exporter for tracing (default) |
| otel.metrics.exporter=otlp (default) | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp | Select the OpenTelemetry exporter for metrics (default) |
| otel.exporter.otlp.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT | The OTLP endpoint to connect to. Must be a URL with a scheme of either http or https based on the use of TLS. Default is http://localhost:4317. |
| otel.exporter.otlp.headers | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS | Key-value pairs separated by semicolons to pass as request headers |
| otel.exporter.otlp.timeout | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT | The maximum waiting time allowed to send each batch. Default is 1000. |
To configure the service name for the OTLP exporter, add the service.name key
to the OpenTelemetry Resource (see below), e.g. OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES=service.name=myservice.
A simple wrapper for the Jaeger exporter of opentelemetry-java. This exporter uses gRPC for its communications protocol.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.exporter=jaeger | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=jaeger | Select the Jaeger exporter |
| otel.exporter.jaeger.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_JAEGER_ENDPOINT | The Jaeger gRPC endpoint to connect to. Default is localhost:14250. |
A simple wrapper for the Zipkin exporter of opentelemetry-java. It sends JSON in Zipkin format to a specified HTTP URL.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.exporter=zipkin | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=zipkin | Select the Zipkin exporter |
| otel.exporter.zipkin.endpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_ZIPKIN_ENDPOINT | The Zipkin endpoint to connect to. Default is http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans. Currently only HTTP is supported. |
A simple wrapper for the Prometheus exporter of opentelemetry-java.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.metrics.exporter=prometheus | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=prometheus | Select the Prometheus exporter |
| otel.exporter.prometheus.port | OTEL_EXPORTER_PROMETHEUS_PORT | The local port used to bind the prometheus metric server. Default is 9464. |
| otel.exporter.prometheus.host | OTEL_EXPORTER_PROMETHEUS_HOST | The local address used to bind the prometheus metric server. Default is 0.0.0.0. |
The logging exporter prints the name of the span along with its attributes to stdout. It's mainly used for testing and debugging.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.exporter=logging | OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=logging | Select the logging exporter for tracing |
| otel.metrics.exporter=logging | OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=logging | Select the logging exporter for metrics |
| otel.exporter.logging.prefix | OTEL_EXPORTER_LOGGING_PREFIX | An optional string printed in front of the span name and attributes. |
The propagators determine which distributed tracing header formats are used, and which baggage propagation header formats are used.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.propagators | OTEL_PROPAGATORS | The propagators to be used. Use a comma-separated list for multiple propagators. Supported propagators are tracecontext, baggage, b3, b3multi, jaeger, ottracer, and xray. Default is tracecontext,baggage (W3C). |
The OpenTelemetry Resource is a representation of the entity producing telemetry.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.resource.attributes | OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES | Specify resource attributes in the following format: key1=val1,key2=val2,key3=val3 |
The peer service name is the name of a remote service being connected to. It corresponds to service.name in the Resource for the local service.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.endpoint.peer.service.mapping | OTEL_ENDPOINT_PEER_SERVICE_MAPPING | Used to specify a mapping from hostnames or IP addresses to peer services, as a comma-separated list of host=name pairs. The peer service is added as an attribute to a span whose host or IP match the mapping. For example, if set to 1.2.3.4=cats-service,dogs-abcdef123.serverlessapis.com=dogs-api, requests to 1.2.3.4 will have a peer.service attribute of cats-service and requests to dogs-abcdef123.serverlessapis.com will have an attribute of dogs-api. |
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.bsp.schedule.delay | OTEL_BSP_SCHEDULE_DELAY | The interval, in milliseconds, between two consecutive exports. Default is 5000. |
| otel.bsp.max.queue.size | OTEL_BSP_MAX_QUEUE_SIZE | The maximum queue size. Default is 2048. |
| otel.bsp.max.export.batch.size | OTEL_BSP_MAX_EXPORT_BATCH_SIZE | The maximum batch size. Default is 512. |
| otel.bsp.export.timeout | OTEL_BSP_EXPORT_TIMEOUT | The maximum allowed time, in milliseconds, to export data. Default is 30000. |
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.traces.sampler | OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER | The sampler to use for tracing. Defaults to parentbased_always_on |
| otel.traces.sampler.arg | OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG | An argument to the configured tracer if supported, for example a ratio. |
| otel.span.attribute.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_ATTRIBUTE_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of attributes per span. Default is 32. |
| otel.span.event.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_EVENT_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of events per span. Default is 128. |
| otel.span.link.count.limit | OTEL_SPAN_LINK_COUNT_LIMIT | The maximum number of links per span. Default is 32 |
Supported values for otel.traces.sampler are
- "always_on": AlwaysOnSampler
- "always_off": AlwaysOffSampler
- "traceidratio": TraceIdRatioBased.
otel.traces.sampler.argsets the ratio. - "parentbased_always_on": ParentBased(root=AlwaysOnSampler)
- "parentbased_always_off": ParentBased(root=AlwaysOffSampler)
- "parentbased_traceidratio": ParentBased(root=TraceIdRatioBased).
otel.traces.sampler.argsets the ratio.
| System property | Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| otel.imr.export.interval | OTEL_IMR_EXPORT_INTERVAL | The interval, in milliseconds, between pushes to the exporter. Default is 60000. |
Customizing the SDK is highly advanced behavior and is still in the prototyping phase. It may change drastically or be removed completely. Use with caution
The OpenTelemetry SDK exposes SPI hooks
for customizing its behavior, such as the Resource attached to spans or the Sampler.
Because the automatic instrumentation runs in a different classpath than the instrumented application, it is not possible for customization in the application to take advantage of this customization. In order to provide such customization, you can provide the path to a JAR file, including an SPI implementation using the system property otel.initializer.jar. Note that this JAR needs to shade the OpenTelemetry API in the same way as the agent does. The simplest way to do this is to use the same shading configuration as the agent from here. In addition, you must specify the io.opentelemetry.javaagent.shaded.io.opentelemetry.api.trace.spi.TraceProvider to the name of the class that implements the SPI.