The Nginx OTEL module package, designed for Debian/Ubuntu-based systems, is exclusively available to Nginx Plus users through official distribution and maintenance by Nginx. While Nginx provides all the open-source code, they recommend users compile and distribute the module independently.
This particular module is derived from the Open Telemetry Nginx addon
(found at https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-cpp-contrib/tree/main/instrumentation/nginx),
not the Nginx-based source (https://github.com/nginxinc/nginx-otel).
Both utilize opentelemetry-cpp, resulting in nearly identical functionality.
However, the Open Telemetry addon is configured externally rather than directly within Nginx using the nginx.conf file.
Notably, comprehensive tutorials for compiling this module for Alpine-based systems or ARM CPUs are scarce. Therefore, this repository provides examples for building and configuring the Nginx OTEL module for Alpine.
Warning It's crucial to compile the module using the same Nginx source code version as the one in operation.
The compilation process yields a module file, otel_ngx_module.so, located in the /usr/lib/nginx/modules/ directory.
While this file can be simply archived for distribution, a repeatable process is advised.
This means establishing a build pipeline, especially when the Nginx version used for the build becomes outdated.
docker build \
-f Dockerfile \
--build-arg=IMAGE=nginx:1.25.3-alpine .# Version must be same for source image and for version that was used for build module
FROM nginx:1.25.3-alpine
RUN apk add --no-cache tar libstdc++
# Change Nginx version and/or architecture (amd64 / arm64)
ADD https://github.com/contember/nginx-open-telemetry-module/releases/download/v1.0.0/otel_ngx_module_1.25.3-alpine_amd64.tgz /opt
# Unzip asset and put it into rigt place
RUN cd /opt ; tar xf otel_ngx_module_1.25.3-alpine_amd64.tgz
RUN cp /opt/otel_ngx_module.so /usr/lib/nginx/modules/otel_ngx_module.so
# (Optional) put custom configuration files
COPY opentelemetry.toml /etc/nginx/opentelemetry.toml
COPY nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf# Location for module copied from build pipeline
load_module /etc/nginx/modules/otel_ngx_module.so;
user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log notice;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
# Configuration for OpenTelemetry module
opentelemetry_config /etc/nginx/opentelemetry.toml;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;
keepalive_timeout 65;
server {
listen 127.0.0.1:80;
location / {
opentelemetry on;
opentelemetry_propagate;
add_header Content-Type text/plain;
return 200 "Hello World!";
}
}
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}More details about possibility of configuration files can be found here. Or in example of file permalink to example.
exporter = "otlp"
processor = "batch"
[exporters.otlp]
host = "localhost"
port = 4317
[processors.batch]
max_queue_size = 2048
schedule_delay_millis = 5000
max_export_batch_size = 512
[service]
name = "nginx-ingress" # Opentelemetry resource name
[sampler]
name = "AlwaysOn" # Also: AlwaysOff, TraceIdRatioBased
ratio = 0.1
parent_based = false