@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http

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.

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

const tracerProvider = new TracerProvider({
  spanProcessors: [
    new SimpleSpanProcessor({ exporter: new ConsoleSpanExporter() })
  ]
});
trace.setGlobalTracerProvider(tracerProvider);
// See https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js/tree/main/packages/sdk-trace/
// for a more complete example setting up a *context manager* and *propagators*.

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	Function for filtering incoming requests. HTTP instrumentation will not trace incoming requests for which the function returns true.
ignoreOutgoingRequestHook	IgnoreOutgoingRequestFunction	Function for filtering outgoing requests. HTTP instrumentation will not trace outgoing requests for which the function returns true.
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	Deprecated. No longer used. Stable HTTP semantic conventions do not include the http.server_name attribute; this option has no effect.
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.
redactedQueryParams	string[]	Experimental. Query parameter names whose values are redacted on outgoing (client) spans. Replaces the built-in list. See Query parameter redaction.
redactedQueryParamsServer	string[]	Experimental. Query parameter names whose values are redacted on incoming (server) spans. Replaces the built-in list. See Query parameter redaction.
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.

Query parameter redaction

Query parameters that commonly carry credentials are redacted before URLs are recorded as span attributes. On client spans the redacted URL is recorded as url.full; on server spans the redacted query string is recorded as url.query. Matching values are replaced with the literal string REDACTED.

By default both sides redact the following parameters:

sig, Signature, AWSAccessKeyId, X-Goog-Signature,
X-Amz-Signature, X-Amz-Credential, X-Amz-Security-Token

redactedQueryParams controls the client side and redactedQueryParamsServer controls the server side, independently. For each option:

• Omit it to use the built-in list above.
• Supply an array to replace the built-in list entirely. The arrays are not merged, so include any built-in parameters you still want redacted.
• Supply an empty array to disable redaction on that side.

The two options do not fall back to each other: when redactedQueryParamsServer is omitted, server spans use the built-in list, not the value of redactedQueryParams. Setting redactedQueryParams alone therefore leaves custom parameters unredacted on server spans. To redact the same custom parameters on both sides, set both options to the same array.

Parameter names are matched exactly and are case-sensitive, which is why the built-in list contains both sig and Signature.

// The built-in list plus an application-specific parameter, applied to both sides.
const redacted = [
  'sig',
  'Signature',
  'AWSAccessKeyId',
  'X-Goog-Signature',
  'X-Amz-Signature',
  'X-Amz-Credential',
  'X-Amz-Security-Token',
  'api_key',
];

new HttpInstrumentation({
  redactedQueryParams: redacted,
  redactedQueryParamsServer: redacted,
});

Hook function signatures

Hook type	Parameters	Return value
IgnoreIncomingRequestFunction	request: IncomingMessage	true skips tracing the incoming request; false traces it
IgnoreOutgoingRequestFunction	request: RequestOptions	true skips tracing the outgoing request; false traces it
HttpRequestCustomAttributeFunction	span: Span, request: ClientRequest or IncomingMessage	void
HttpResponseCustomAttributeFunction	span: Span, response: IncomingMessage or ServerResponse	void
StartIncomingSpanCustomAttributeFunction	request: IncomingMessage	Attributes to add before the incoming request span starts
StartOutgoingSpanCustomAttributeFunction	request: RequestOptions	Attributes to add before the outgoing request span starts
HttpCustomAttributeFunction	span: Span, request: ClientRequest or IncomingMessage, response: IncomingMessage or ServerResponse	void

Semantic Conventions

Span attributes:

v1.23.0 semconv	Short Description
client.address	The IP address of the original client behind all proxies, if known
network.protocol.version	Kind of HTTP protocol used
server.address	The value of the HTTP host header
http.request.method	HTTP request method
(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.
(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.)
(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.
(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.)
no change	The matched route (path template).
url.scheme	The URI scheme identifying the used protocol
server.address	The primary server name of the matched virtual host
http.response.status_code	HTTP response status code
url.path and url.query	The URI path and query component
url.full	Full HTTP request URL in the form scheme://host[:port]/path?query[#fragment]
user_agent.original	Value of the HTTP User-Agent header sent by the client
network.local.address	Like net.peer.ip but for the host IP. Useful in case of a multi-IP host
server.address	Local hostname or similar
server.port	Like net.peer.port but for the host port
network.peer.address	Remote address of the peer (dotted decimal for IPv4 or RFC5952 for IPv6)
server.address	Server domain name if available without reverse DNS lookup
server.port	Server port number
network.transport	Transport protocol used

Metrics:

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

Versions of @opentelemetry/instrumentation-http to 0.221.0 used semantic conventions v1.7.0 by default. Versions 0.54.0 - 0.220.0 supported the OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN environment variable for migrating from old to stable semantic conventions.

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.