Exporters
Send telemetry to the OpenTelemetry Collector to make sure it’s exported correctly. Using the Collector in production environments is a best practice. To visualize your telemetry, export it to a backend such as Jaeger, Zipkin, Prometheus, or a vendor-specific backend.
Available exporters
The registry contains a list of exporters for .NET.
Among exporters, OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) exporters are designed with the OpenTelemetry data model in mind, emitting OTel data without any loss of information. Furthermore, many tools that operate on telemetry data support OTLP (such as Prometheus, Jaeger, and most vendors), providing you with a high degree of flexibility when you need it. To learn more about OTLP, see OTLP Specification.
This page covers the main OpenTelemetry .NET exporters and how to set them up.
Note
If you use zero-code instrumentation, you can learn how to set up exporters by following the Configuration Guide.
OTLP
Collector Setup
Note
If you have a OTLP collector or backend already set up, you can skip this section and setup the OTLP exporter dependencies for your application.
To try out and verify your OTLP exporters, you can run the collector in a docker container that writes telemetry directly to the console.
In an empty directory, create a file called collector-config.yaml
with the
following content:
receivers:
otlp:
protocols:
grpc:
endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
http:
endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318
exporters:
debug:
verbosity: detailed
service:
pipelines:
traces:
receivers: [otlp]
exporters: [debug]
metrics:
receivers: [otlp]
exporters: [debug]
logs:
receivers: [otlp]
exporters: [debug]
Now run the collector in a docker container:
docker run -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 --rm -v $(pwd)/collector-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol/config.yaml otel/opentelemetry-collector
This collector is now able to accept telemetry via OTLP. Later you may want to configure the collector to send your telemetry to your observability backend.
Dependencies
If you want to send telemetry data to an OTLP endpoint (like the OpenTelemetry Collector, Jaeger or Prometheus), you can choose between two different protocols to transport your data:
- HTTP/protobuf
- gRPC
Start by installing the
OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol
package as a dependency for your project:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol
If you’re using ASP.NET Core install the
OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
package as well:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
Usage
ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporters in your ASP.NET Core services:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
.WithTracing(tracing => tracing
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddOtlpExporter())
.WithMetrics(metrics => metrics
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddOtlpExporter());
builder.Logging.AddOpenTelemetry(logging => {
// The rest of your setup code goes here
logging.AddOtlpExporter();
});
This will, by default, send telemetry using gRPC to http://localhost:4317, to customize this to use HTTP and the protobuf format, you can add options like this:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
.WithTracing(tracing => tracing
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/traces");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
}))
.WithMetrics(metrics => metrics
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/metrics");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
}));
builder.Logging.AddOpenTelemetry(logging => {
// The rest of your setup code goes here
logging.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/logs");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
});
});
Non-ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter when creating a TracerProvider
, MeterProvider
or
LoggerFactory
:
var tracerProvider = Sdk.CreateTracerProviderBuilder()
// Other setup code, like setting a resource goes here too
.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/traces");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
})
.Build();
var meterProvider = Sdk.CreateMeterProviderBuilder()
// Other setup code, like setting a resource goes here too
.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/metrics");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
})
.Build();
var loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder =>
{
builder.AddOpenTelemetry(logging =>
{
logging.AddOtlpExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-endpoint-here/v1/logs");
options.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
})
});
});
Use environment variables to set values like headers and an endpoint URL for production.
Console
Dependencies
The console exporter is useful for development and debugging tasks, and is the
simplest to set up. Start by installing the
OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Console
package as a dependency for your project:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Console
If you’re using ASP.NET Core install the
OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
package as well:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
Usage
ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter in your ASP.NET Core services:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
.WithTracing(tracing => tracing
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddConsoleExporter()
)
.WithMetrics(metrics => metrics
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddConsoleExporter()
);
builder.Logging.AddOpenTelemetry(logging => {
// The rest of your setup code goes here
logging.AddConsoleExporter();
});
Non-ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter when creating a TracerProvider
, MeterProvider
or
LoggerFactory
:
var tracerProvider = Sdk.CreateTracerProviderBuilder()
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddConsoleExporter()
.Build();
var meterProvider = Sdk.CreateMeterProviderBuilder()
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddConsoleExporter()
.Build();
var loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder =>
{
builder.AddOpenTelemetry(logging =>
{
logging.AddConsoleExporter();
});
});
Jaeger
Backend Setup
Jaeger natively supports OTLP to receive trace data. You can run Jaeger in a docker container with the UI accessible on port 16686 and OTLP enabled on ports 4317 and 4318:
docker run --rm \
-e COLLECTOR_ZIPKIN_HOST_PORT=:9411 \
-p 16686:16686 \
-p 4317:4317 \
-p 4318:4318 \
-p 9411:9411 \
jaegertracing/all-in-one:latest
Usage
Now following the instruction to setup the OTLP exporters.
Prometheus
To send your metric data to Prometheus, you can either
enable Prometheus’ OTLP Receiver
and use the OTLP exporter or you can use the Prometheus exporter, a
MetricReader
that starts an HTTP server that collects metrics and serialize to
Prometheus text format on request.
Backend Setup
Note
If you have Prometheus or a Prometheus-compatible backend already set up, you can skip this section and setup the Prometheus or OTLP exporter dependencies for your application.
You can run Prometheus in a docker container,
accessible on port 9090
by following these instructions:
Create a file called prometheus.yml
with the following content:
scrape_configs:
- job_name: dice-service
scrape_interval: 5s
static_configs:
- targets: [host.docker.internal:9464]
Run Prometheus in a docker container with the UI accessible on port 9090
:
docker run --rm -v ${PWD}/prometheus.yml:/prometheus/prometheus.yml -p 9090:9090 prom/prometheus --enable-feature=otlp-write-receive
Note
When using Prometheus’ OTLP Receiver, make sure that you set the OTLP endpoint
for metrics in your application to http://localhost:9090/api/v1/otlp
.
Not all docker environments support host.docker.internal
. In some cases you
may need to replace host.docker.internal
with localhost
or the IP address of
your machine.
Dependencies
Install the exporter package as a dependency for your application:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Prometheus.AspNetCore --version 1.9.0-beta.2
If you’re using ASP.NET Core install the
OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
package as well:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
Usage
ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter in your ASP.NET Core services:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
.WithMetrics(metrics => metrics.AddPrometheusExporter());
You’ll then need to add the endpoint so that Prometheus can scrape your site.
You can do this using the IAppBuilder
extension like this:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
// .. Setup
var app = builder.Build();
app.UseOpenTelemetryPrometheusScrapingEndpoint();
await app.RunAsync();
Non-ASP.NET Core
Warning
This component is intended for dev inner-loop, there is no plan to make it production ready. Production environments should useOpenTelemetry.Exporter.Prometheus.AspNetCore
,
or a combination of
OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol
and
OpenTelemetry Collector.For applications not using ASP.NET Core, you can use the HttpListener
version
which is available in a
different package:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Prometheus.HttpListener --version 1.9.0-beta.2
Then this is setup directly on the MeterProviderBuilder
:
var meterProvider = Sdk.CreateMeterProviderBuilder()
.AddMeter(MyMeter.Name)
.AddPrometheusHttpListener(
options => options.UriPrefixes = new string[] { "http://localhost:9464/" })
.Build();
Finally, register the Prometheus scraping middleware using the
UseOpenTelemetryPrometheusScrapingEndpoint
extension method on
IApplicationBuilder
:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
var app = builder.Build();
app.UseOpenTelemetryPrometheusScrapingEndpoint();
Further details on configuring the Prometheus exporter can be found here.
Zipkin
Backend Setup
Note
If you have Zipkin or a Zipkin-compatible backend already set up, you can skip this section and setup the Zipkin exporter dependencies for your application.
You can run Zipkin on in a Docker container by executing the following command:
docker run --rm -d -p 9411:9411 --name zipkin openzipkin/zipkin
Dependencies
To send your trace data to Zipkin, install the exporter package as a dependency for your application:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Zipkin
If you’re using ASP.NET Core install the
OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
package as well:
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
Usage
ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter in your ASP.NET Core services:
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
.WithTracing(tracing => tracing
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddZipkinExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-zipkin-uri-here");
}));
Non-ASP.NET Core
Configure the exporter when creating a tracer provider:
var tracerProvider = Sdk.CreateTracerProviderBuilder()
// The rest of your setup code goes here
.AddZipkinExporter(options =>
{
options.Endpoint = new Uri("your-zipkin-uri-here");
})
.Build();
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