redhat-opentelemetry-python-contrib

OpenTelemetry Python extensions written at Red Hat

This repository includes:

• File exporters to export OpenTelemetry data to files when using auto-instrumentation
• Script instrumentor - Auto instrumentation plugin for wrapping an entire python script run in a tracing span

Installation

pip install redhat-opentelemetry-python-contrib

Using the file exporters

The file exporters can be used by setting the OTEL_*_EXPORTER environment variables to file, or using the equivalent arguments to opentelemetry-instrument.

For example to export span data to a file for a particular Python script:

opentelemetry-instrument --traces_exporter file python myscript.py

The file to which the data will be written to can be customized using the environment variables listed below. Otherwise, the listed default value would be used:

Using the script instrumentor

Once installed, the script instrumentor will automatically wrap any Python script invoked with auto instrumentation enabled in a span that would include the script name, command-line arguments and exit status.

The script instrumentor attempts to propagate the tracing context from the environment it was invoked in, by trying to read environment variables that are capitalized versions of the HTTP headers defined by the W3C Trace Context specification. This typically means that if the TRACEPARENT environment variable is defined in the environment the script runs in, the script span will become a child span of that trace. This is generally compatible with how other tools and systems handle things such as the Ansible OpenTelemetry callback plugin and the Jenkins OpenTelemetry plugin.

The script instrumentor can cause traces to look a bit strange for things that are not meant to be stand-alone Python scripts such as Django and Flask server processes. It can be disabled by setting the OTEL_PYTHON_DISABLED_INSTRUMENTATIONS environment variable:

export OTEL_PYTHON_DISABLED_INSTRUMENTATIONS="__main__"