Chapter 5. Using the Red Hat build of OpenTelemetry

You can set up and use the Red Hat build of OpenTelemetry to send traces to the OpenTelemetry Collector or the TempoStack.

5.1. Forwarding traces to a TempoStack by using the OpenTelemetry Collector

To configure forwarding traces to a TempoStack, you can deploy and configure the OpenTelemetry Collector. You can deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector in the deployment mode by using the specified processors, receivers, and exporters. For other modes, see the OpenTelemetry Collector documentation linked in Additional resources.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat build of OpenTelemetry Operator is installed.
The Tempo Operator is installed.
A TempoStack is deployed on the cluster.

Procedure

Create a service account for the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Example ServiceAccount

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-deployment

Create a cluster role for the service account.

Example ClusterRole

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
rules:
  1
  2
- apiGroups: ["", "config.openshift.io"]
  resources: ["pods", "namespaces", "infrastructures", "infrastructures/status"]
  verbs: ["get", "watch", "list"]

1: The k8sattributesprocessor requires permissions for pods and namespaces resources.
2: The resourcedetectionprocessor requires permissions for infrastructures and status.

Bind the cluster role to the service account.

Example ClusterRoleBinding

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: otel-collector-deployment
  namespace: otel-collector-example
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Create the YAML file to define the OpenTelemetryCollector custom resource (CR).

Example OpenTelemetryCollector

apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
  name: otel
spec:
  mode: deployment
  serviceAccount: otel-collector-deployment
  config: |
    receivers:
      jaeger:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          thrift_binary:
          thrift_compact:
          thrift_http:
      opencensus:
      otlp:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          http:
      zipkin:
    processors:
      batch:
      k8sattributes:
      memory_limiter:
        check_interval: 1s
        limit_percentage: 50
        spike_limit_percentage: 30
      resourcedetection:
        detectors: [openshift]
    exporters:
      otlp:
        endpoint: "tempo-simplest-distributor:4317" 1
        tls:
          insecure: true
    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [jaeger, opencensus, otlp, zipkin] 2
          processors: [memory_limiter, k8sattributes, resourcedetection, batch]
          exporters: [otlp]

1: The Collector exporter is configured to export OTLP and points to the Tempo distributor endpoint, "tempo-simplest-distributor:4317" in this example, which is already created.
2: The Collector is configured with a receiver for Jaeger traces, OpenCensus traces over the OpenCensus protocol, Zipkin traces over the Zipkin protocol, and OTLP traces over the GRPC protocol.

Tip

You can deploy tracegen as a test:

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: Job
metadata:
  name: tracegen
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: tracegen
          image: ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tracegen:latest
          command:
            - "./tracegen"
          args:
            - -otlp-endpoint=otel-collector:4317
            - -otlp-insecure
            - -duration=30s
            - -workers=1
      restartPolicy: Never
  backoffLimit: 4

Additional resources

5.2. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector

Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector is possible with or without sidecar injection.

5.2.1. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector with sidecar injection

You can set up sending telemetry data to an OpenTelemetry Collector instance with sidecar injection.

The Red Hat build of OpenTelemetry Operator allows sidecar injection into deployment workloads and automatic configuration of your instrumentation to send telemetry data to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift distributed tracing platform (Tempo) is installed, and a TempoStack instance is deployed.
You have access to the cluster through the web console or the OpenShift CLI (oc):
- You are logged in to the web console as a cluster administrator with the cluster-admin role.
- An active OpenShift CLI (oc) session by a cluster administrator with the cluster-admin role.
- For Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated, you must have an account with the dedicated-admin role.

Procedure

Create a project for an OpenTelemetry Collector instance.

apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
kind: Project
metadata:
  name: observability

Create a service account.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-sidecar
  namespace: observability

Grant the permissions to the service account for the k8sattributes and resourcedetection processors.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
rules:
- apiGroups: ["", "config.openshift.io"]
  resources: ["pods", "namespaces", "infrastructures", "infrastructures/status"]
  verbs: ["get", "watch", "list"]
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: otel-collector-sidecar
  namespace: observability
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector as a sidecar.

apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
  name: otel
  namespace: observability
spec:
  serviceAccount: otel-collector-sidecar
  mode: sidecar
  config: |
    serviceAccount: otel-collector-sidecar
    receivers:
      otlp:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          http:
    processors:
      batch:
      memory_limiter:
        check_interval: 1s
        limit_percentage: 50
        spike_limit_percentage: 30
      resourcedetection:
        detectors: [openshift]
        timeout: 2s
    exporters:
      otlp:
        endpoint: "tempo-<example>-gateway:8090" 1
        tls:
          insecure: true
    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [jaeger]
          processors: [memory_limiter, resourcedetection, batch]
          exporters: [otlp]

1: This points to the Gateway of the TempoStack instance deployed by using the <example> Tempo Operator.

Create your deployment using the otel-collector-sidecar service account.
Add the sidecar.opentelemetry.io/inject: "true" annotation to your Deployment object. This will inject all the needed environment variables to send data from your workloads to the OpenTelemetry Collector instance.

5.2.2. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector without sidecar injection

You can set up sending telemetry data to an OpenTelemetry Collector instance without sidecar injection, which involves manually setting several environment variables.

Prerequisites

The Red Hat OpenShift distributed tracing platform (Tempo) is installed, and a TempoStack instance is deployed.
You have access to the cluster through the web console or the OpenShift CLI (oc):
- You are logged in to the web console as a cluster administrator with the cluster-admin role.
- An active OpenShift CLI (oc) session by a cluster administrator with the cluster-admin role.
- For Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated, you must have an account with the dedicated-admin role.

Procedure

Create a project for an OpenTelemetry Collector instance.

apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
kind: Project
metadata:
  name: observability

Create a service account.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-deployment
  namespace: observability

Grant the permissions to the service account for the k8sattributes and resourcedetection processors.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
rules:
- apiGroups: ["", "config.openshift.io"]
  resources: ["pods", "namespaces", "infrastructures", "infrastructures/status"]
  verbs: ["get", "watch", "list"]
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: otel-collector
  namespace: observability
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector instance with the OpenTelemetryCollector custom resource.

apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
  name: otel
  namespace: observability
spec:
  mode: deployment
  serviceAccount: otel-collector-deployment
  config: |
    receivers:
      jaeger:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          thrift_binary:
          thrift_compact:
          thrift_http:
      opencensus:
      otlp:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          http:
      zipkin:
    processors:
      batch:
      k8sattributes:
      memory_limiter:
        check_interval: 1s
        limit_percentage: 50
        spike_limit_percentage: 30
      resourcedetection:
        detectors: [openshift]
    exporters:
      otlp:
        endpoint: "tempo-<example>-distributor:4317" 1
        tls:
          insecure: true
    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [jaeger, opencensus, otlp, zipkin]
          processors: [memory_limiter, k8sattributes, resourcedetection, batch]
          exporters: [otlp]

1: This points to the Gateway of the TempoStack instance deployed by using the <example> Tempo Operator.

Set the environment variables in the container with your instrumented application.

Name	Description	Default value
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME	Sets the value of the `service.name` resource attribute.	`""`
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	Base endpoint URL for any signal type with an optionally specified port number.	`https://localhost:4317`
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_CERTIFICATE	Path to the certificate file for the TLS credentials of the gRPC client.	`https://localhost:4317`
OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER	Sampler to be used for traces.	`parentbased_always_on`
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL	Transport protocol for the OTLP exporter.	`grpc`
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT	Maximum time interval for the OTLP exporter to wait for each batch export.	`10s`
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE	Disables client transport security for gRPC requests. An HTTPS schema overrides it.	`False`

Chapter 5. Using the Red Hat build of OpenTelemetry

5.1. Forwarding traces to a TempoStack by using the OpenTelemetry Collector

5.2. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector

5.2.1. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector with sidecar injection

5.2.2. Sending traces and metrics to the OpenTelemetry Collector without sidecar injection

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