OpenTelemetry HTTP and HTTPS Instrumentation for Node.js

Note: This is an experimental package under active development. New releases may include breaking changes.

This module provides automatic instrumentation for http and https.

For automatic instrumentation see the @opentelemetry/sdk-trace-node package.

Installation

npm install --save @opentelemetry/instrumentation-http

Supported Versions

• Nodejs >=14

Usage

OpenTelemetry HTTP Instrumentation allows the user to automatically collect telemetry and export it to their backend of choice, to give observability to distributed systems.

To load a specific instrumentation (HTTP in this case), specify it in the Node Tracer's configuration.

const { HttpInstrumentation } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http');
const {
  ConsoleSpanExporter,
  NodeTracerProvider,
  SimpleSpanProcessor,
} = require('@opentelemetry/sdk-trace-node');
const { registerInstrumentations } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation');

const provider = new NodeTracerProvider({
  spanProcessors: [new SimpleSpanProcessor(new ConsoleSpanExporter())]
});

provider.register();

registerInstrumentations({
  instrumentations: [new HttpInstrumentation()],
});

See examples/http for a short example.

Http instrumentation Options

Http instrumentation has a few configuration options available to choose from. You can set the following:

Options | Type | Description --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ | ----------- applyCustomAttributesOnSpan | HttpCustomAttributeFunction | Function for adding custom attributes requestHook | HttpRequestCustomAttributeFunction | Function for adding custom attributes before request is handled responseHook | HttpResponseCustomAttributeFunction | Function for adding custom attributes before response is handled startIncomingSpanHook | StartIncomingSpanCustomAttributeFunction | Function for adding custom attributes before a span is started in incomingRequest startOutgoingSpanHook | StartOutgoingSpanCustomAttributeFunction | Function for adding custom attributes before a span is started in outgoingRequest ignoreIncomingRequestHook | IgnoreIncomingRequestFunction | HTTP instrumentation will not trace all incoming requests that matched with custom function. ignoreOutgoingRequestHook | IgnoreOutgoingRequestFunction | HTTP instrumentation will not trace all outgoing requests that matched with custom function. disableOutgoingRequestInstrumentation | boolean | Set to true to avoid instrumenting outgoing requests at all. This can be helpful when another instrumentation handles outgoing requests. disableIncomingRequestInstrumentation | boolean | Set to true to avoid instrumenting incoming requests at all. This can be helpful when another instrumentation handles incoming requests. serverName | string | The primary server name of the matched virtual host. requireParentforOutgoingSpans | Boolean | Require that is a parent span to create new span for outgoing requests. requireParentforIncomingSpans | Boolean | Require that is a parent span to create new span for incoming requests. headersToSpanAttributes | object | Specify which HTTP headers should be captured as span attributes. This is an object of the form {client: {requestHeaders: [...], responseHeaders: [...]}, server: {requestHeaders: [...], responseHeaders: [...]}}, where each [...] is an array of HTTP header names (case-insensitive) to capture. Client (outgoing requests, incoming responses) and server (incoming requests, outgoing responses) headers will be converted to span attributes in the form of http.{request,response}.header.$header_name, e.g. http.response.header.content_length. By default hyphens in header names are converted to underscore. However, if stable semantic conventions are selected (see next section), then, hyphens in header names are not changed, e.g. http.response.header.content-length.

Semantic Conventions

Prior to version 0.54.0, this instrumentation created spans targeting an experimental semantic convention Version 1.7.0.

HTTP semantic conventions (semconv) were stabilized in v1.23.0, and a migration process was defined. instrumentation-http versions 0.54.0 and later include support for migrating to stable HTTP semantic conventions, as described below. The intent is to provide an approximate 6 month time window for users of this instrumentation to migrate to the new HTTP semconv, after which a new minor version will use the new semconv by default and drop support for the old semconv. See the HTTP semconv migration plan for OpenTelemetry JS instrumentations.

To select which semconv version(s) is emitted from this instrumentation, use the OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN environment variable.

• http: emit the new (stable) v1.23.0+ semantics
• http/dup: emit both the old v1.7.0 and the new (stable) v1.23.0+ semantics
• By default, if OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN includes neither of the above tokens, the old v1.7.0 semconv is used.

Attributes collected

v1.7.0 semconv | v1.23.0 semconv | Short Description ------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ----- http.client_ip | client.address | The IP address of the original client behind all proxies, if known http.flavor | network.protocol.version | Kind of HTTP protocol used http.host | server.address | The value of the HTTP host header http.method | http.request.method | HTTP request method http.request_content_length | (opt-in, headersToSpanAttributes) | The size of the request payload body in bytes. For newer semconv, use the headersToSpanAttributes option to capture this as http.request.header.content-length. http.request_content_length_uncompressed | (not included) | The size of the uncompressed request payload body after transport decoding. (In semconv v1.23.0 this is defined by http.request.body.size, which is experimental and opt-in.) http.response_content_length | (opt-in, headersToSpanAttributes) | The size of the response payload body in bytes. For newer semconv, use the headersToSpanAttributes option to capture this as http.response.header.content-length. http.response_content_length_uncompressed | (not included) | The size of the uncompressed response payload body after transport decoding. (In semconv v1.23.0 this is defined by http.response.body.size, which is experimental and opt-in.) http.route | no change | The matched route (path template). http.scheme | url.scheme | The URI scheme identifying the used protocol http.server_name | server.address | The primary server name of the matched virtual host http.status_code | http.response.status_code | HTTP response status code http.target | url.path and url.query | The URI path and query component http.url | url.full | Full HTTP request URL in the form scheme://host[:port]/path?query[#fragment] http.user_agent | user_agent.original | Value of the HTTP User-Agent header sent by the client net.host.ip | network.local.address | Like net.peer.ip but for the host IP. Useful in case of a multi-IP host net.host.name | server.address | Local hostname or similar net.host.port | server.port | Like net.peer.port but for the host port net.peer.ip | network.peer.address | Remote address of the peer (dotted decimal for IPv4 or RFC5952 for IPv6) net.peer.name | server.address | Server domain name if available without reverse DNS lookup net.peer.port | server.port | Server port number net.transport | network.transport | Transport protocol used

Metrics Exported:

• http.server.request.duration
• http.client.request.duration

Upgrading Semantic Conventions

When upgrading to the new semantic conventions, it is recommended to do so in the following order:

1. Upgrade @opentelemetry/instrumentation-http to the latest version
2. Set OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN=http/dup to emit both old and new semantic conventions
3. Modify alerts, dashboards, metrics, and other processes to expect the new semantic conventions
4. Set OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN=http to emit only the new semantic conventions

This will cause both the old and new semantic conventions to be emitted during the transition period.

Useful links

• For more information on OpenTelemetry, visit: https://opentelemetry.io/
• For more about OpenTelemetry JavaScript: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js
• For help or feedback on this project, join us in GitHub Discussions

License

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE for more information.