Getting Started

If you aren’t familiar with the deployment models, components, and repositories applicable to the OpenTelemetry Collector, first review the Data Collection and Deployment Methods page.

Demo

Deploys a load generator, agent and gateway as well as Jaeger, Zipkin and Prometheus back-ends. More information can be found on the demo README.md

git clone git@github.com:open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib.git --depth 1; \
  cd opentelemetry-collector-contrib/examples/demo; \
  docker-compose up -d

Docker

Pull a docker image and run the collector in a container. Replace 0.72.0 with the version of the Collector you wish to run.

$ docker pull otel/opentelemetry-collector:0.72.0
$ docker run otel/opentelemetry-collector:0.72.0

$ docker pull ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.72.0
$ docker run ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.72.0

To load your custom configuration config.yaml from your current working directory, mount that file as a volume:

$ docker run -v $(pwd)/config.yaml:/etc/otelcol/config.yaml otel/opentelemetry-collector:0.72.0

$ docker run -v $(pwd)/config.yaml:/etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.72.0

Docker Compose

You can add OpenTelemetry collector to your existing docker-compose.yaml like the following:

# Collector
otel-collector:
  image: otel/opentelemetry-collector
  command: [--config=/etc/otel-collector-config.yaml]
  volumes:
    - ./otel-collector-config.yaml:/etc/otel-collector-config.yaml
  ports:
    - 1888:1888 # pprof extension
    - 8888:8888 # Prometheus metrics exposed by the collector
    - 8889:8889 # Prometheus exporter metrics
    - 13133:13133 # health_check extension
    - 4317:4317 # OTLP gRPC receiver
    - 4318:4318 # OTLP http receiver
    - 55679:55679 # zpages extension

Kubernetes

Deploys an agent as a daemonset and a single gateway instance.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/main/examples/k8s/otel-config.yaml

The example above is meant to serve as a starting point, to be extended and customized before actual production usage. For production-ready customization and installation, see OpenTelemetry Helm Charts.

The OpenTelemetry Operator can also be used to provision and maintain an OpenTelemetry Collector instance, with features such as automatic upgrade handling, Service configuration based on the OpenTelemetry configuration, automatic sidecar injection into deployments, among others.

Nomad

Reference job files to deploy the Collector as an agent, gateway and in the full demo can be found at Getting Started with OpenTelemetry on HashiCorp Nomad

Linux Packaging

Every Collector release includes APK, DEB and RPM packaging for Linux amd64/arm64/i386 systems. The packaging includes a default configuration that can be found at /etc/otelcol/config.yaml post-installation.

Please note that systemd is required for automatic service configuration

APK Installation

To get started on alpine systems run the following replacing v0.72.0 with the version of the Collector you wish to run.

$ apk update
$ apk add wget shadow
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.apk
$ apk add --allow-untrusted otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.apk

$ apk update
$ apk add wget shadow
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.apk
$ apk add --allow-untrusted otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.apk

$ apk update
$ apk add wget shadow
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.apk
$ apk add --allow-untrusted otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.apk

DEB Installation

To get started on Debian systems run the following replacing v0.72.0 with the version of the Collector you wish to run and amd64 with the appropriate architecture.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.deb

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.deb

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.deb

RPM Installation

To get started on Red Hat systems run the following replacing v0.72.0 with the version of the Collector you wish to run and x86_64 with the appropriate architecture.

$ sudo yum update
$ sudo yum -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.rpm
$ sudo rpm -ivh otelcol_0.72.0_linux_amd64.rpm

$ sudo yum update
$ sudo yum -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.rpm
$ sudo rpm -ivh otelcol_0.72.0_linux_arm64.rpm

$ sudo yum update
$ sudo yum -y install wget systemctl
$ wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.rpm
$ sudo rpm -ivh otelcol_0.72.0_linux_386.rpm

Automatic Service Configuration

By default, the otelcol systemd service will be started with the --config=/etc/otelcol/config.yaml option after installation. To customize these options, modify the OTELCOL_OPTIONS variable in the /etc/otelcol/otelcol.conf systemd environment file with the appropriate command-line options (run /usr/bin/otelcol --help to see all available options). Additional environment variables can also be passed to the otelcol service by adding them to this file.

If either the Collector configuration file or /etc/otelcol/otelcol.conf are modified, restart the otelcol service to apply the changes by running:

sudo systemctl restart otelcol

To check the output from the otelcol service, run:

sudo journalctl -u otelcol

MacOS Packaging

MacOS releases are available for Intel- & ARM-based systems. They are packaged as gzipped tarballs (.tar.gz) and will need to be unpacked with a tool that supports this compression format:

 $ curl -O -L
https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol*0.72.0\_darwin_amd64.tar.gz $ tar -xvf
otelcol*0.72.0\_darwin_amd64.tar.gz 

 $ curl -O -L
https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.72.0/otelcol*0.72.0\_darwin_arm64.tar.gz $ tar -xvf
otelcol*0.72.0\_darwin_arm64.tar.gz 

Every Collector release includes an otelcol executable that you can run after unpacking.

Windows Packaging

Windows releases are packaged as gzipped tarballs (.tar.gz) and will need to be unpacked with a tool that supports this compression format.

Every Collector release includes an otelcol.exe executable that you can run after unpacking.

Local

Builds the latest version of the collector based on the local operating system, runs the binary with all receivers enabled and exports all the data it receives locally to a file. Data is sent to the container and the container scrapes its own Prometheus metrics. The following example uses two terminal windows to better illustrate the collector. In the first terminal window run the following:

git clone https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector.git
cd opentelemetry-collector
make install-tools
make otelcorecol
./bin/otelcorecol_* --config ./examples/local/otel-config.yaml

In a second terminal window, you can test the newly built collector by doing the following:

git clone https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib.git
cd opentelemetry-collector-contrib/examples/demo/server
go build -o main main.go; ./main & pid1="$!"
cd ../client
go build -o main main.go; ./main

To stop the client, use type Ctrl-C. To stop the server, use the kill $pid1 command. To stop the collector, type Ctrl-C in its terminal window as well.

Note: The commands shown above demonstrate the process in a bash shell. These commands may vary slightly for other shells.