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Configure the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET 🔗

You can configure the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET to suit your instrumentation needs. In most cases, modifying the basic configuration is enough to get started. More advanced settings are also available.

Configuration methods 🔗

You can change the settings of the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET in the following ways:

  • For .NET applications, set environment variables. On Windows, set them in the process scope unless you want to activate automatic instrumentation globally for all .NET applications.

  • For .NET Framework applications running as Windows services, you can add settings in the appSettings block of the app.config file when supported or set environment variables using the Windows Registry.

  • For ASP.NET applications, add settings in the appSettings block of the web.config file. For example:

    <configuration>
   <appSettings>
      <add key="OTEL_SERVICE_NAME" value="my-service-name" />
   </appSettings>
</configuration>

    Alternatively, you can set environment variables using any of the following methods:

    • Add the <environmentVariables> element in applicationHost.config for your application pools.

    • Set the environment variables for W3SVC and WAS.

  • For ASP.NET Core applications, add <environmentVariable> elements inside the <aspNetCore> block of your web.config file.

General settings 🔗

The following settings are common to most instrumentation scenarios:

Setting

Description

SPLUNK_TRACE_RESPONSE_HEADER_ENABLED

Activated by default. Adds server trace information to HTTP response headers. For more information, see Server trace information. The default value is true.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_EXCLUDE_PROCESSES

Names of the executable files that you don’t want the profiler to instrument. Supports multiple semicolon-separated values, for example: ReservedProcess.exe;powershell.exe. Notice that applications launched using dotnet MyApp.dll have process name dotnet or dotnet.exe. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_ENABLED

Traces are collected by default. To deactivate trace collection, set the environment variable to false. Data from custom or manual instrumentation is not affected.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_ENABLED

Metrics are collected by default. To deactivate metric collection, set the environment variable to false. Data from custom or manual instrumentation is not affected.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_ENABLED

Logs are collected by default. To deactivate log collection, set the environment variable to false. Data from custom or manual instrumentation is not affected.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_OPENTRACING_ENABLED

Activates the OpenTracing tracer. The default value is false. See Migrate from the SignalFx .NET Instrumentation for more information.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_NETFX_REDIRECT_ENABLED

Activates immediate redirection of the assemblies used by the automatic instrumentation on the .NET Framework. The default values is true. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_FLUSH_ON_UNHANDLEDEXCEPTION

Controls whether the telemetry data is flushed when an AppDomain.UnhandledException event is raised. Set to true when experiencing missing telemetry at the same time of unhandled exceptions.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_RULE_ENGINE_ENABLED

Activates RuleEngine. The default values is true. RuleEngine increases the stability of the instrumentation by validating assemblies for unsupported scenarios.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_FAIL_FAST_ENABLED

Activate to let the process fail when automatic instrumentation can’t be executed. This setting is for debugging purposes, don’t use it in production environments. The default value is false. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

Exporter settings 🔗

The following settings control trace exporters and their endpoints:

Setting

Description

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT

The URL to where traces and metrics are sent. The default value is http://localhost:4318. Setting a value overrides the SPLUNK_REALM environment variable.

SPLUNK_REALM

The name of your organization’s realm, for example, us0. When you set the realm, telemetry is sent directly to the ingest endpoint of Splunk Observability Cloud, bypassing the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector.

SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN

A Splunk authentication token that lets exporters send data directly to Splunk Observability Cloud. Unset by default. Required if you need to send data to the Splunk Observability Cloud ingest endpoint. See Create and manage authentication tokens using Splunk Observability Cloud.

.NET OTel settings for AlwaysOn Profiling 🔗

The following settings control the AlwaysOn Profiling feature for the .NET instrumentation:

Environment variable

Description

SPLUNK_PROFILER_ENABLED

Activates AlwaysOn Profiling. The default value is false.

SPLUNK_PROFILER_MEMORY_ENABLED

Activates memory profiling. The default value is false.

SPLUNK_PROFILER_LOGS_ENDPOINT

The collector endpoint for profiler logs. The default value is http://localhost:4318/v1/logs.

SPLUNK_PROFILER_CALL_STACK_INTERVAL

Frequency with which call stacks are sampled, in milliseconds. The default value is 10000 milliseconds.

Note

AlwaysOn Profiling for .NET is compatible with .NET 6.0 and higher. For more information on AlwaysOn Profiling, see Introduction to AlwaysOn Profiling for Splunk APM.

Trace propagation settings 🔗

The following settings control trace propagation:

Setting

Description

OTEL_PROPAGATORS

Comma-separated list of propagators for the tracer. The default value is tracecontext,baggage. Supported values are b3multi, b3, tracecontext, and baggage.

Samplers configuration 🔗

The following settings control trace sampling:

Environment variable

Description

OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER

Sampler to use. The default value is parentbased_always_on. Supported values are always_on, always_off, traceidratio, parentbased_always_on, parentbased_always_off, and parentbased_traceidratio.

Resource detectors configuration 🔗

You can use resource detectors to retrieve additional attributes for your application’s spans.

The following settings control resource detectors:

Environment variable

Description

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_RESOURCE_DETECTOR_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates all resource detectors. The default values is true.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_{DECTECTOR}_RESOURCE_DETECTOR_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates a specific resource detector, where {DETECTOR} is the uppercase identifier of the resource detector you want to activate. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_RESOURCE_DETECTOR_ENABLED.

The following resource detectors are available:

Detector ID

Description

Attributes

Maturity level

Support level

AZUREAPPSERVICE

Azure App Service detector.

azure.app.service.stamp, cloud.platform, cloud.provider, cloud.resource_id, cloud.region, deployment.environment, host.id, service.instance.id, service.name

Experimental Beta

Community support

CONTAINER
(Not supported on .NET Framework)

Container detector. For example, Docker or Podman containers.

container.id

Experimental Beta

Community support

HOST

Host detector.

host.name

Experimental Beta

Community support

PROCESS

Process detector.

process.pid

Experimental Beta

Community support

PROCESSRUNTIME

Process Runtime detector.

process.runtime.description, process.runtime.name, process.runtime.version

Experimental Beta

Community support

Instrumentation settings 🔗

The following settings control instrumentations and tracing behavior:

Setting

Description

OTEL_SERVICE_NAME

Name of the service or application you’re instrumenting. Takes precedence over the service name defined in the OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES variable.

OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES

Comma-separated list of resource attributes added to every reported span. For example, key1=val1,key2=val2.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_ADDITIONAL_SOURCES

Comma-separated list of additional System.Diagnostics.ActivitySource names to be added to the tracer at startup. Use it to capture spans from manual instrumentation.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_ADDITIONAL_SOURCES

Comma-separated list of additional System.Diagnostics.Metrics.Meter names to be added to the meter at the startup. Use it to capture custom metrics.

OTEL_SPAN_ATTRIBUTE_COUNT_LIMIT

Maximum number of attributes per span. Default value is unlimited.

OTEL_SPAN_EVENT_COUNT_LIMIT

Maximum number of events per span. Default value is unlimited.

OTEL_SPAN_LINK_COUNT_LIMIT

Maximum number of links per span. Default value is 1000.

OTEL_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE_LENGTH_LIMIT

Maximum length of strings for attribute values. Values larger than the limit are truncated. Default value is 1200. Empty values are treated as infinity.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_ENTITYFRAMEWORKCORE_SET_DBSTATEMENT_FOR_TEXT

Whether the Entity Framework Core instrumentation can pass SQL statements through the db.statement attribute. Queries might contain sensitive information. If set to false, db.statement is recorded only for executing stored procedures. The default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_GRAPHQL_SET_DOCUMENT

Whether the GraphQL instrumentation can pass raw queries as a graphql.document attribute. As queries might contain sensitive information, the default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_SQLCLIENT_SET_DBSTATEMENT_FOR_TEXT

Whether the SQL Client instrumentation can pass SQL statements through the db.statement attribute. Queries might contain sensitive information. If set to false, db.statement is recorded only for executing stored procedures. Not supported on .NET Framework for System.Data.SqlClient. The default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_ADDITIONAL_LEGACY_SOURCES

Comma-separated list of additional legacy source names to be added to the tracer at the startup. Use it to capture System.Diagnostics.Activity objects created without using the System.Diagnostics.ActivitySource API.

The following settings control which instrumentations are activated. See Deactivate specific instrumentations for more information.

Setting

Description

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates all instrumentations. The default value is true. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates all trace instrumentations. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_{INSTRUMENTATION}_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates a specific trace instrumentation, where {INSTRUMENTATION} is the case-sensitive name of the instrumentation. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files. See Supported libraries for a complete list of supported instrumentations and their names.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates all metric instrumentations. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_{INSTRUMENTATION}_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates a specific metric instrumentation, where {INSTRUMENTATION} is the case-sensitive name of the instrumentation. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files. See Supported libraries for a complete list of supported instrumentations and their names.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates all log instrumentations. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_{INSTRUMENTATION}_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED

Activates or deactivates a specific log instrumentation, where {INSTRUMENTATION} is the case-sensitive name of the instrumentation. Overrides OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED. Inherits the value of the OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED environment variable. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files. See Supported libraries for a complete list of supported instrumentations and their names.

Server trace information 🔗

To connect Real User Monitoring (RUM) requests from mobile and web applications with server trace data, trace response headers are activated by default. The instrumentation adds the following response headers to HTTP responses:

Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Server-Timing
Server-Timing: traceparent;desc="00-<serverTraceId>-<serverSpanId>-01"

The Server-Timing header contains the traceId and spanId parameters in traceparent format. For more information, see the Server-Timing and traceparent documentation on the W3C website.

Note

If you need to deactivate trace response headers, set SPLUNK_TRACE_RESPONSE_HEADER_ENABLED to false.

Diagnostic logging settings 🔗

The following settings control the internal logging of the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET:

Setting

Description

OTEL_LOG_LEVEL

Sets the logging level for instrumentation log messages. Possible values are none, error, warn, info, and debug. The default value is info. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOG_DIRECTORY

Directory of the .NET tracer logs. The default value is /var/log/opentelemetry/dotnet for Linux, and %ProgramData%\OpenTelemetry .NET AutoInstrumentation\logs for Windows. Can’t be set using the web.config or app.config files.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_TRACES_CONSOLE_EXPORTER_ENABLED

Whether the traces console exporter is activated. The default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_METRICS_CONSOLE_EXPORTER_ENABLED

Whether the metrics console exporter is activated. The default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_CONSOLE_EXPORTER_ENABLED

Whether the logs console exporter is activated. The default value is false.The default value is false.

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_LOGS_INCLUDE_FORMATTED_MESSAGE

Whether the log state have to be formatted. The default value is false.

Changing the default service name 🔗

By default, the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET retrieves the service name by trying the following steps until it succeeds:

  1. The default service name is the name of the entry assembly. For example, the name of your .NET project file. For ASP.NET applications, the default service name is SiteName[/VirtualPath].

  2. If the entry assembly is not available, the instrumentation tries to use the current process name. The process name can be dotnet if launched directly using an assembly. For example, dotnet InstrumentedApp.dll.

If all the steps fail, the service name defaults to unknown_service.

Note

To override the default service name, set the OTEL_SERVICE_NAME environment variable.

Environment variables for manual installation 🔗

When deploying the instrumentation manually, you need to make sure to set the following environment variables:

Environment variable

Value

CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING

1

CORECLR_PROFILER

{918728DD-259F-4A6A-AC2B-B85E1B658318}

CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH_64

$installationLocation\win-x64\OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation.Native.dll

CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH_32

$installationLocation\win-x86\OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation.Native.dll

DOTNET_ADDITIONAL_DEPS

$installationLocation\AdditionalDeps

DOTNET_SHARED_STORE

$installationLocation\store

DOTNET_STARTUP_HOOKS

$installationLocation\net\OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation.StartupHook.dll

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_HOME

$installationLocation

OTEL_DOTNET_AUTO_PLUGINS

Splunk.OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation.Plugin, Splunk.OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation