Use OpenTelemetry

You can use the OpenTelemetry monitoring and tracing service to gather node metrics and traces. To enable OpenTelemetry to access Besu, use the --metrics-enabled and --metrics-protocol=opentelemetry options. Use Splunk to visualize the collected data. A Besu Sync example is available.

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Use OpenTelemetry to monitor the sync time of your Besu node and show where time is spent internally and over the JSON-RPC interface.

This office hours recording shows examples of monitoring Besu.

Install OpenTelemetry Collector

Download and install the OpenTelemetry Collector.

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You can also install exporters that send system metrics to OpenTelemetry to monitor non-Besu-specific items such as disk and CPU usage. The OpenTelemetry Collector can connect to additional applications, and may be deployed in Kubernetes environments as a daemonset.

Setting up and running OpenTelemetry with Besu

1. Configure OpenTelemetry to accept data from Besu. For example, use the following configuration for your otel-collector-config.yml file, and send data to Splunk and Splunk APM:

   otel-collector-config.yml

   receivers:
     otlp:
       protocols:
         grpc:
         http:
   
   exporters:
     splunk_hec/traces:
       # Splunk HTTP Event Collector token.
       token: "11111111-1111-1111-1111-1111111111113"
       # URL to a Splunk instance to send data to.
       endpoint: "https://<SPLUNK INSTANCE>:8088/services/collector"
       # Optional Splunk source: https://docs.splunk.com/Splexicon:Source
       source: "besu:traces"
       # Optional Splunk source type: https://docs.splunk.com/Splexicon:Sourcetype
       sourcetype: "otlp"
       # Splunk index, optional name of the Splunk index targeted.
       index: "traces"
       # Maximum HTTP connections to use simultaneously when sending data. Defaults to 100.
       max_connections: 20
       # Whether to disable gzip compression over HTTP. Defaults to false.
       disable_compression: false
       # HTTP timeout when sending data. Defaults to 10s.
       timeout: 10s
       # Whether to skip checking the certificate of the HEC endpoint when sending data over HTTPS. Defaults to false.
       # For this demo, we use a self-signed certificate on the Splunk docker instance, so this flag is set to true.
       insecure_skip_verify: true
     splunk_hec/metrics:
       # Splunk HTTP Event Collector token.
       token: "11111111-1111-1111-1111-1111111111113"
       # URL to a Splunk instance to send data to.
       endpoint: "https://<SPLUNK INSTANCE>:8088/services/collector"
       # Optional Splunk source: https://docs.splunk.com/Splexicon:Source
       source: "besu:metrics"
       # Optional Splunk source type: https://docs.splunk.com/Splexicon:Sourcetype
       sourcetype: "prometheus"
       # Splunk index, optional name of the Splunk index targeted.
       index: "metrics"
       # Maximum HTTP connections to use simultaneously when sending data. Defaults to 100.
       max_connections: 20
       # Whether to disable gzip compression over HTTP. Defaults to false.
       disable_compression: false
       # HTTP timeout when sending data. Defaults to 10s.
       timeout: 10s
       # Whether to skip checking the certificate of the HEC endpoint when sending data over HTTPS. Defaults to false.
       # For this demo, we use a self-signed certificate on the Splunk docker instance, so this flag is set to true.
       insecure_skip_verify: true
     # Traces
     sapm:
       access_token: "${SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
       endpoint: "https://ingest.${SPLUNK_REALM}.signalfx.com/v2/trace"
     # Metrics + Events
     signalfx:
       access_token: "${SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
       realm: "${SPLUNK_REALM}"
   
   processors:
     batch:
   
   extensions:
     health_check:
     pprof:
     zpages:
   
   service:
     extensions: [pprof, zpages, health_check]
     pipelines:
       traces:
         receivers: [otlp]
         exporters: [splunk_hec/traces, sapm]
         processors: [batch]
       metrics:
         receivers: [otlp]
         exporters: [splunk_hec/metrics, signalfx]
         processors: [batch]

   It is easiest to run the OpenTelemetry collector with Docker with the following command:

   Syntax

   docker run -d \
     -v ./otel-collector-config.yml:/etc/otel/config.yaml \
     -e SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN=<access token> \
     -e SPLUNK_REALM=<realm> \
     -p 4317:4317 \
     otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest

   Example

   docker run -d \
     -v ./otel-collector-config.yml:/etc/otel/config.yaml \
     -e SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN=abcdefg654 \
     -e SPLUNK_REALM=us1 \
     -p 4317:4317 \
     otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest

   You can also refer to this Docker-compose example.

2. Start Besu with the --metrics-enabled and --metrics-protocol=opentelemetry options. For example, run the following command to start a single node:

   Syntax

   OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://<host>:<port> besu --network=dev --miner-enabled --miner-coinbase <COINBASE ADDRESS> --rpc-http-cors-origins="all" --rpc-http-enabled --metrics-enabled --metrics-protocol=opentelemetry

   Example

   OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://localhost:4317 besu --network=dev --miner-enabled --miner-coinbase fe3b557e8fb62b89f4916b721be55ceb828dbd73 --rpc-http-cors-origins="all" --rpc-http-enabled --metrics-enabled --metrics-protocol=opentelemetry

   The OpenTelemetry SDK mandates how to configure the OpenTelemetry gRPC client, so data flows to the collector from Besu.

   You can use the following environment variables:

   Name	Description	Required
   OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	OpenTelemetry Collector endpoint, of the form https://host:port. The default is https://localhost:4317.	Yes
   OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE	Whether to allow insecure connections for OpenTelemetry data. The default is false.	No