Getting Started

Welcome to the OpenTelemetry for Erlang/Elixir getting started guide! This guide will walk you through the basic steps in installing, configuring, and exporting data from OpenTelemetry.

Creating a New Project

To get started with this guide, create a new project with rebar3 or mix:

• Erlang
• Elixir

rebar3 new release otel_getting_started

mix new --sup otel_getting_started

Then, in the project you just created, add both opentelemetry_api and opentelemetry as dependencies. We add both because this is a project we will run as a Release and export spans from.

• Erlang
• Elixir

{deps, [{opentelemetry_api, "~> 1.2"},
        {opentelemetry, "~> 1.3"}]}.

def deps do
  [
    {:opentelemetry_api, "~> 1.2"},
    {:opentelemetry, "~> 1.3"}
  ]
end

In the case of Erlang, the API Application will also need to be added to src/otel_getting_started.app.src and a relx section to rebar.config. In an Elixir project, a releases section needs to be added to mix.exs:

• Erlang
• Elixir

%% src/otel_getting_started.app.src
...
{applications, [kernel,
                stdlib,
                opentelemetry_api]},
...

%% rebar.config
{relx, [{release, {otel_getting_started, "0.1.0"},
         [{opentelemetry, temporary},
          otel_getting_started]},

       ...]}.

# mix.exs
releases: [
  otel_getting_started: [
    version: "0.0.1",
    applications: [opentelemetry: :temporary, otel_getting_started: :permanent]
  ]
]

The SDK opentelemetry should be added as early as possible in the Release boot process to ensure it is available before any telemetry is produced. Here it is also set to temporary under the assumption that we prefer to have a running Release not producing telemetry over crashing the entire Release.

In addition to the API and SDK, an exporter for getting data out is needed. The SDK comes with an exporter for debugging purposes that prints to stdout and there are separate packages for exporting over the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) and the Zipkin protocol.

Initialization and Configuration

Configuration is done through the Application environment or OS Environment Variables. The SDK (opentelemetry Application) uses the configuration to initialize a Tracer Provider, its Span Processors and the Exporter.

Using the Console Exporter

Exporters are packages that allow telemetry data to be emitted somewhere - either to the console (which is what we’re doing here), or to a remote system or collector for further analysis and/or enrichment. OpenTelemetry supports a variety of exporters through its ecosystem, including popular open-source tools like Jaeger and Zipkin.

To configure OpenTelemetry to use a particular exporter, in this case otel_exporter_stdout, the Application environment for opentelemetry must set the exporter for the span processor otel_batch_processor, a type of span processor that batches up multiple spans over a period of time:

• Erlang
• Elixir

%% config/sys.config.src
[
 {opentelemetry,
  [{span_processor, batch},
   {traces_exporter, {otel_exporter_stdout, []}}]}
].

# config/runtime.exs
config :opentelemetry,
  span_processor: :batch,
  traces_exporter: {:otel_exporter_stdout, []}

Working with Spans

Now that the dependencies and configuration are set up, we can create a module with a function hello/0 that starts some spans:

• Erlang
• Elixir

%% apps/otel_getting_started/src/otel_getting_started.erl
-module(otel_getting_started).

-export([hello/0]).

-include_lib("opentelemetry_api/include/otel_tracer.hrl").

hello() ->
    %% start an active span and run a local function
    ?with_span(operation, #{}, fun nice_operation/1).

nice_operation(_SpanCtx) ->
    ?add_event(<<"Nice operation!">>, [{<<"bogons">>, 100}]),
    ?set_attributes([{another_key, <<"yes">>}]),

    %% start an active span and run an anonymous function
    ?with_span(<<"Sub operation...">>, #{},
               fun(_ChildSpanCtx) ->
                       ?set_attributes([{lemons_key, <<"five">>}]),
                       ?add_event(<<"Sub span event!">>, [])
               end).

# lib/otel_getting_started.ex
defmodule OtelGettingStarted do
  require OpenTelemetry.Tracer, as: Tracer

  def hello do
    Tracer.with_span :operation do
      Tracer.add_event("Nice operation!", [{"bogons", 100}])
      Tracer.set_attributes([{:another_key, "yes"}])

      Tracer.with_span "Sub operation..." do
        Tracer.set_attributes([{:lemons_key, "five"}])
        Tracer.add_event("Sub span event!", [])
      end
    end
  end
end

In this example, we’re using macros that use the process dictionary for context propagation and for getting the tracer.

Inside our function, we’re creating a new span named operation with the with_span macro. The macro sets the new span as active in the current context – stored in the process dictionary, since we aren’t passing a context as a variable.

Spans can have attributes and events, which are metadata and log statements that help you interpret traces after-the-fact. The first span has an event Nice operation!, with attributes on the event, as well as an attribute set on the span itself.

Finally, in this code snippet, we can see an example of creating a child span of the currently-active span. When the with_span macro starts a new span, it uses the active span of the current context as the parent. So when you run this program, you’ll see that the Sub operation... span has been created as a child of the operation span.

To test out this project and see the spans created, you can run with rebar3 shell or iex -S mix, each will pick up the corresponding configuration for the release, resulting in the tracer and exporter to started.

• Erlang
• Elixir

$ rebar3 shell
===> Compiling otel_getting_started
Erlang/OTP 23 [erts-11.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe]

Eshell V11.1  (abort with ^G)
1>
1> otel_getting_started:hello().
true
*SPANS FOR DEBUG*
{span,177312096541376795265675405126880478701,5706454085098543673,undefined,
      13736713257910636645,<<"Sub operation...">>,internal,
      -576460750077844044,-576460750077773674,
      [{lemons_key,<<"five">>}],
      [{event,-576460750077786044,<<"Sub span event!">>,[]}],
      [],undefined,1,false,undefined}
{span,177312096541376795265675405126880478701,13736713257910636645,undefined,
      undefined,operation,internal,-576460750086570890,
      -576460750077752627,
      [{another_key,<<"yes">>}],
      [{event,-576460750077877345,<<"Nice operation!">>,[{<<"bogons">>,100}]}],
      [],undefined,1,false,undefined}

$ iex -S mix
Erlang/OTP 23 [erts-11.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe]

Compiling 1 file (.ex)
Interactive Elixir (1.11.0) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)> OtelGettingStarted.hello()
true
iex(2)>
*SPANS FOR DEBUG*
{span,180094370450826032544967824850795294459,5969980227405956772,undefined,
      14276444653144535440,<<"Sub operation...">>,'INTERNAL',
      -576460741349434100,-576460741349408901,
      [{lemons_key,<<"five">>}],
      [{event,-576460741349414157,<<"Sub span event!">>,[]}],
      [],undefined,1,false,undefined}
{span,180094370450826032544967824850795294459,14276444653144535440,undefined,
      undefined,:operation,'INTERNAL',-576460741353342627,
      -576460741349400034,
      [{another_key,<<"yes">>}],
      [{event,-576460741349446725,<<"Nice operation!">>,[{<<"bogons">>,100}]}],
      [],undefined,1,false,undefined}

Exporting to the OpenTelemetry Collector

The Collector provides a vendor agnostic way to receive, process and export telemetry data. The package opentelemetry_exporter provides support for both exporting over both HTTP (the default) and gRPC to the collector, which can then export Spans to a self-hosted service like Zipkin or Jaeger, as well as commercial services. For a full list of available exporters, see the registry.

For testing purposes the opentelemetry-erlang repo has a Collector configuration, config/otel-collector-config.yaml that can be used as a starting point. This configuration is used in docker-compose.yml to start the Collector with receivers for both HTTP and gRPC that then export to Zipkin also run by docker-compose.

To export to the running Collector the opentelemetry_exporter package must be added to the project’s dependencies:

• Erlang
• Elixir

{deps, [{opentelemetry_api, "~> 1.3"},
        {opentelemetry, "~> 1.3"},
        {opentelemetry_exporter, "~> 1.4"}]}.

def deps do
  [
    {:opentelemetry_api, "~> 1.3"},
    {:opentelemetry, "~> 1.3"},
    {:opentelemetry_exporter, "~> 1.4"}
  ]
end

It should then be added to the configuration of the Release before the SDK Application to ensure the exporter’s dependencies are started before the SDK attempts to initialize and use the exporter.

Example of Release configuration in rebar.config and for mix’s Release task:

• Erlang
• Elixir

%% rebar.config
{relx, [{release, {my_instrumented_release, "0.1.0"},
         [opentelemetry_exporter,
	      {opentelemetry, temporary},
          my_instrumented_app]},

       ...]}.

# mix.exs
def project do
  [
    releases: [
      my_instrumented_release: [
        applications: [opentelemetry_exporter: :permanent, opentelemetry: :temporary]
      ],

      ...
    ]
  ]
end

Finally, the runtime configuration of the opentelemetry and opentelemetry_exporter Applications are set to export to the Collector. The configurations below show the defaults that are used if none are set, which are the HTTP protocol with endpoint of localhost on port 4318. If using grpc for the otlp_protocol the endpoint should be changed to http://localhost:4317.

• Erlang
• Elixir

%% config/sys.config.src
[
 {opentelemetry,
  [{span_processor, batch},
   {traces_exporter, otlp}]},

 {opentelemetry_exporter,
  [{otlp_protocol, http_protobuf},
   {otlp_endpoint, "http://localhost:4318"}]}]}
].

# config/runtime.exs
config :opentelemetry,
  span_processor: :batch,
  traces_exporter: :otlp

config :opentelemetry_exporter,
  otlp_protocol: :http_protobuf,
  otlp_endpoint: "http://localhost:4318"