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Deploy the Collector for Linux with Chef πŸ”—

Chef is a configuration management technology used to manage infrastructure on physical or virtual machines. Chef uses cookbooks to define a scenario.

Cookbooks are fundamental working units of Chef, which consists of all the details related to working units, having the capability to modify configuration and the state of any system configured as a node on Chef infrastructure. Cookbooks can run multiple tasks.

Prerequisites πŸ”—

You need the following resources to use Chef:

Linux πŸ”—

The following Linux distributions and versions:

  • Amazon Linux: 2

  • CentOS, Red Hat, Oracle: 7, 8, 9

  • Debian: 9, 10, 11

  • SUSE: 12, 15 (Note: Only for Collector versions 0.34.0 or higher. Log collection with Fluentd not currently supported.)

  • Ubuntu: 18.04, 20.04, 22.04

Install and use the Collector with Chef πŸ”—

Download the Chef cookbook from the Chef Supermarket , which is the site for community cookbooks.

To install the Collector, include the splunk_otel_collector::default recipe in the run_list, and set the attributes on the node’s run_state. The following is an example configuration that shows how to configure the required splunk_access_token attribute and some optional attributes:

{
    "splunk-otel-collector": {
        "splunk_access_token": "<SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN>",
        "splunk_realm": "<SPLUNK_REALM>",
    }
}

Attributes for Linux πŸ”—

For Linux, the cookbook accepts the attributes described in the following table:

Name

Description

Default value

collector_version

Version of the Collector package to install, for example, 0.25.0. The version should correspond to Github Releases without the preceding v. Note that on Linux, the latest Collector version is installed if this parameter is not specified.

None

gomemlimit

Replaces splunk_ballast_size_mib starting in Collector version 0.97.0. It allows limiting memory usage in the GO runtime, helping enhance garbage collection and prevent out of memory situations. Learn more at how to update memory ballast in your configuration.

90% of splunk_total_mem_mib

splunk_access_token

The Splunk access token to authenticate requests. This attribute is required.

None

splunk_realm

Which realm to send the data to, for example, us0. The Splunk ingest and API URLs are inferred by this value. The SPLUNK_REALM environment variable is set with this value for the collector service. This attribute is required. To find your Splunk realm, see Note about realms.

None

splunk_ingest_url

Sets the Splunk ingest URL explicitly instead of the URL inferred by the $splunk_realm parameter. The SPLUNK_INGEST_URL environment variable is set with this value for the Collector service.

https://ingest.${splunk_realm}.signalfx.com

splunk_api_url

Sets the Splunk API URL explicitly instead of the URL inferred by the $splunk_realm parameter. The SPLUNK_API_URL environment variable is set with this value for the Collector service.

https://api.${splunk_realm}.signalfx.com

splunk_trace_url

Sets the Splunk trace endpoint URL explicitly instead of the URL inferred by the $splunk_ingest_url parameter. The SPLUNK_TRACE_URL environment variable is set with this value for the Collector service.

${splunk_ingest_url}/v2/trace

splunk_bundle_dir

The path to the Smart Agent bundle directory. The default path is provided by the Collector package. If the specified path is changed from the default value, the path should be an existing directory on the node. The SPLUNK_BUNDLE_DIR environment variable is set to this value for the Collector service.

/usr/lib/splunk-otel-collector/agent-bundle

splunk_collectd_dir

The path to the collectd configuration directory for the Smart Agent bundle. The default path is provided by the Collector package. If the specified path is changed from the default value, the path should be an existing directory on the node. The SPLUNK_COLLECTD_DIR environment variable is set to this value for the Collector service.

${splunk_bundle_dir}/run/collectd

splunk_memory_total_mib

Total memory in MIB to allocate to the Collector; automatically calculates the ballast size. The SPLUNK_MEMORY_TOTAL_MIB environment variable is set to this value for the Collector service.

512

splunk_ballast_size_mib

splunk_ballast_size_mib is deprecated starting on Collector version 0.97.0. If you’re using it, see how to update your configuration.

"

collector_config_source

The source path to the Collector configuration YAML file. This file is copied to the $collector_config_dest path on the node. See the source attribute of the file resource for the supported value types. The default source file is provided by the Collector package.

/etc/otel/collector/agent_config.yaml

collector_config_dest

Destination path of the Collector configuration file on the node. The SPLUNK_CONFIG environment variable is set with this value for the Collector service.

/etc/otel/collector/agent_config.yaml

node['splunk_otel_collector']['collector_config']

The Collector configuration object. Everything underneath this object gets directly converted to YAML and becomes the Collector configuration file. Using this option preempts collector_config_source functionality.

{}

service_user and $service_group

Sets the user or group ownership for the Collector service. The user or group is created if they do not exist.

splunk-otel-collector

package_stage

The Collector package repository stage to use. Can be release, beta, or test.

release

with_fluentd

Whether to install or manage Fluentd and dependencies for log collection. On Linux, the dependencies include capng_c for activating Linux capabilities, fluent-plugin-systemd for systemd journal log collection, and the required libraries and development tools.

false

fluentd_version

Version of the td-agent (Fluentd) package to install

3.7.1 for Debian stretch and 4.3.1 for all other Linux distros

fluentd_config_source

Source path to the Fluentd configuration file. This file is copied to the $fluentd_config_dest path on the node. See the source attribute of the file resource for the supported value types. The default source file is provided by the Collector package. Only applicable if $with_fluentd is set to true.

/etc/otel/collector/fluentd/fluent.conf

fluentd_config_dest

Destination path to the Fluentd configuration file on the node. Only applicable if $with_fluentd is set to true.

/etc/otel/collector/fluentd/fluent.conf

Configure automatic discovery for back-end applications (Linux only) πŸ”—

You can automatically instrument your back-end applications applications along with the Collector installation using automatic discovery. Automatic discovery removes the need to install and configure OpenTelemetry agents separately. See Discover telemetry sources automatically for more information. The applications to be instrumented on the node need to be started or restarted separately after installation or any configuration changes for automatic discovery to take effect.

The following table shows the variables that can be configured with this Chef cookbook:

Name

Description

Default value

with_auto_instrumentation

Whether to install or manage automatic discovery for back-end applications. When set to true, the splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation deb/rpm package is downloaded and installed from the Collector repository. To learn more, see Automatic discovery and configuration for back-end applications in Linux.

false

with_auto_instrumentation_sdks

The automatic discovery SDKs to install and activate. Note: dotnet is currently only supported for x86_64/amd64.

%w(java nodejs dotnet)

auto_instrumentation_version

Version of the splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation package to install, for example, 0.50.0. The minimum supported version is 0.48 for Java, 0.87.0 for Node.js, and 0.99.0 for .NET.

latest

auto_instrumentation_systemd

Whether to activate and configure the automatic discovery for systemd services only. If set to true, the automatic discovery environment variables are added to /usr/lib/systemd/system.conf.d/00-splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation.conf.

false

auto_instrumentation_ld_so_preload

By default, the /etc/ld.so.preload file on the node is configured for the /usr/lib/splunk-instrumentation/libsplunk.so shared object library provided by the splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation package and is required for system-wide automatic discovery. Configure this variable to include additional library paths, for example, /path/to/my.library.so.

''

auto_instrumentation_resource_attributes

Configure the OpenTelemetry instrumentation resource attributes, for example, deployment.environment=prd,my.key=my.value (comma-separated string of key=value pairs). The specified resource attributes are added to the /etc/splunk/zeroconfig/node.conf configuration file on the node, or /usr/lib/systemd/system.conf.d/00-splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation.conf if using the systemd installation method.

''

auto_instrumentation_service_name

Explicitly sets the service name for all instrumented applications on the node, for example, my.service. By default, the service name is automatically derived for each instrumented application. However, if this variable is set to a non-empty value, the value overrides the derived service names.

''

auto_instrumentation_enable_profiler

Activates or deactivates AlwaysOn CPU Profiling. To learn more, see Node.js settings for AlwaysOn Profiling.

false

auto_instrumentation_enable_profiler_memory

Activates or deactivates AlwaysOn Memory Profiling. To learn more, see Node.js settings for AlwaysOn Profiling.

false

auto_instrumentation_enable_metrics

Activates or deactivates exporting instrumentation metrics.

false

auto_instrumentation_otlp_endpoint

Sets the OTLP endpoint for collected metrics, traces, and logs by all activated SDKs. Only applicable if auto_instrumentation_version is latest or 0.87.0 and higher.

'', which defers to the default for each activated SDK.

auto_instrumentation_otlp_endpoint_protocol

Sets the OTLP endpoint protocol for collected metrics, traces, and logs by all activated SDKs, for example grpc or http/protobuf. Only applicable if auto_instrumentation_version is latest or 0.104.0 and higher.

'', which defers to the default for each activated SDK.

auto_instrumentation_metrics_exporter

Comma-separated list of exporters for collected metrics by all activated SDKs, for example otlp,prometheus. Set the value to none to disable collection and export of metrics. Only applicable if auto_instrumentation_version is latest or 0.104.0 and higher.

'', which defers to the default for each activated SDK.

auto_instrumentation_logs_exporter

Sets the exporter for collected logs by all activated SDKs, for example otlp. Set the value to none to disable collection and export of logs. Only applicable if auto_instrumentation_version is latest or 0.108.0 and higher.

'', which defers to the default for each activated SDK.

auto_instrumentation_java_agent_path

Path to the Splunk OpenTelemetry Java agent. The default path is provided by the splunk-otel-auto-instrumentation package. If the path is changed from the default value, the path should be an existing file on the node.

/usr/lib/splunk-instrumentation/splunk-otel-javaagent.jar

auto_instrumentation_npm_path

The path to the pre-installed npm command, e.g. /my/custom/path/to/npm.

npm

Next steps πŸ”—

After you have installed the package, see:

This page was last updated on Aug 30, 2024.