OTLP exporter 🔗

The OTLP exporter sends metrics, traces, and logs through gRPC using the OTLP format. The supported pipeline types are traces, metrics, and logs. See Process your data with pipelines for more information. By default, this exporter requires TLS and provides queued retry capabilities.

To send OTLP data through HTTP, use the OTLP/HTTP exporter. Learn how at OTLP/HTTP exporter.

If you need to bypass the Collector and send data in the OTLP format directly to Splunk Observability Cloud:

To send metrics, use the OTLP endpoint. Find out more in the dev portal at Sending data points . Note that this option only accepts protobuf payloads.
To send traces, use the gRPC endpoint. For more information, see Send traces to Splunk Observability Cloud using the gRPC endpoint.

Read more about the OTLP format at the OTel repo OpenTelemetry Protocol Specification .

Note

For information on the OTLP receiver, see OTLP receiver.

Get started 🔗

Note

This component is included in the default configuration of the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector when deploying in data forwarding (gateway) mode. See Collector deployment modes for more information.

For details about the default configuration, see Configure the Collector for Kubernetes with Helm, Collector for Linux default configuration, or Collector for Windows default configuration. You can customize your configuration any time as explained in this document.

Follow these steps to configure and activate the component:

Deploy the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector to your host or container platform:

Install the Collector for Linux with the installer script

Install the Collector for Windows with the installer script

Install the Collector for Kubernetes using Helm

Configure the exporter as described in the next section.
Restart the Collector.

Sample configuration 🔗

To activate the component, add otlp to the exporters section of your configuration file:

exporters:
  otlp:

The OTLP exporter is included in the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector default configuration in all data pipelines: metrics, traces, and logs.

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      processors: [otlp]
    logs:
      processors: [otlp]
    traces:
      processors: [otlp]

The following settings are required:

endpoint. Address to which the exporter is going to send OTLP data, using the gRPC protocol.
- No default value.
- gRPC supports DNS as the default name-system. To learn more about the valid name syntax, see gRCP Name Resolution in GitHub.
- If you’re using a scheme of https, then client transport security is enabled and overrides the insecure setting.
tls. See the exporter’s Settings in this document for the full set of available options, and learn more at Configure TLS.

Configuration examples 🔗

This is a sample configuration for the exporter:

exporters:
  otlp:
    endpoint: otelcol2:4317
    tls:
      cert_file: file.cert
      key_file: file.key
  otlp/2:
    endpoint: otelcol2:4317
    tls:
      insecure: true

Configure gzip compression 🔗

By default, gzip compression is enabled. To turn it off, use the following configuration:

exporters:
  otlp:
    ...
    compression: none

Settings 🔗

The following table shows the configuration options for the OTLP exporter:

Name	Type	Default	Description
`timeout`	int64	5s	Timeout is the timeout for every attempt to send data to the backend. A zero timeout means no timeout.
sending_queue (see fields)	struct		QueueSettings defines configuration for queueing batches before sending to the consumerSender.
retry_on_failure (see fields)	struct
batcher (see fields)	struct		Config defines a configuration for batching requests based on a timeout and a minimum number of items. MaxSizeItems defines batch splitting functionality if it's more than zero. Experimental: This API is at the early stage of development and may change without backward compatibility until https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/issues/8122 is resolved.
`endpoint`	string
`compression`	string	gzip
tls (see fields)	struct		ClientConfig contains TLS configurations that are specific to client connections in addition to the common configurations. This should be used by components configuring TLS client connections.
keepalive (see fields)	ptr
`read_buffer_size`	int
`write_buffer_size`	int	524288
`wait_for_ready`	bool	false
`headers`	map
`balancer_name`	string
`authority`	string
auth (see fields)	ptr

Fields of sending_queue

Name	Type	Default	Description
`enabled`	bool	true	Enabled indicates whether to not enqueue batches before sending to the consumerSender.
`num_consumers`	int	10	NumConsumers is the number of consumers from the queue. Defaults to 10. If batching is enabled, a combined batch cannot contain more requests than the number of consumers. So it's recommended to set higher number of consumers if batching is enabled.
`queue_size`	int	1000	QueueSize is the maximum number of batches allowed in queue at a given time.
`storage`	ptr		StorageID if not empty, enables the persistent storage and uses the component specified as a storage extension for the persistent queue

Fields of retry_on_failure

Name	Type	Default
`enabled`	bool	true
`initial_interval`	int64	5s
`randomization_factor`	float64
`multiplier`	float64
`max_interval`	int64	30s
`max_elapsed_time`	int64	5m0s

Fields of batcher

Name	Type	Default	Description
`enabled`	bool	false	Enabled indicates whether to not enqueue batches before sending to the consumerSender.
`flush_timeout`	int64	200ms	FlushTimeout sets the time after which a batch will be sent regardless of its size.
`min_size_items`	int	8192	MinSizeItems is the number of items (spans, data points or log records for OTLP) at which the batch should be sent regardless of the timeout. There is no guarantee that the batch size always greater than this value. This option requires the Request to implement RequestItemsCounter interface. Otherwise, it will be ignored.
`max_size_items`	int		MaxSizeItems is the maximum number of the batch items, i.e. spans, data points or log records for OTLP. If the batch size exceeds this value, it will be broken up into smaller batches if possible. Setting this value to zero disables the maximum size limit.

Fields of tls

Name	Type	Default	Description
`ca_file`	string		Path to the CA cert. For a client this verifies the server certificate. For a server this verifies client certificates. If empty uses system root CA. (optional)
`ca_pem`	string		In memory PEM encoded cert. (optional)
`include_system_ca_certs_pool`	bool	false	If true, load system CA certificates pool in addition to the certificates configured in this struct.
`cert_file`	string		Path to the TLS cert to use for TLS required connections. (optional)
`cert_pem`	string		In memory PEM encoded TLS cert to use for TLS required connections. (optional)
`key_file`	string		Path to the TLS key to use for TLS required connections. (optional)
`key_pem`	string		In memory PEM encoded TLS key to use for TLS required connections. (optional)
`min_version`	string		MinVersion sets the minimum TLS version that is acceptable. If not set, TLS 1.2 will be used. (optional)
`max_version`	string		MaxVersion sets the maximum TLS version that is acceptable. If not set, refer to crypto/tls for defaults. (optional)
`cipher_suites`	slice		CipherSuites is a list of TLS cipher suites that the TLS transport can use. If left blank, a safe default list is used. See https://go.dev/src/crypto/tls/cipher_suites.go for a list of supported cipher suites.
`reload_interval`	int64		ReloadInterval specifies the duration after which the certificate will be reloaded If not set, it will never be reloaded (optional)
`insecure`	bool	false	In gRPC and HTTP when set to true, this is used to disable the client transport security. See https://godoc.org/google.golang.org/grpc#WithInsecure for gRPC. Please refer to https://godoc.org/crypto/tls#Config for more information. (optional, default false)
`insecure_skip_verify`	bool	false	InsecureSkipVerify will enable TLS but not verify the certificate.
`server_name_override`	string		ServerName requested by client for virtual hosting. This sets the ServerName in the TLSConfig. Please refer to https://godoc.org/crypto/tls#Config for more information. (optional)

Fields of keepalive

Name	Type	Default
`time`	int64
`timeout`	int64
`permit_without_stream`	bool	false

Fields of auth

Name	Type	Default	Description
`authenticator`	struct		ID represents the identity for a component. It combines two values: type - the Type of the component. name - the name of that component. The component ID (combination type + name) is unique for a given component.Kind.

Troubleshooting 🔗

If you are a Splunk Observability Cloud customer and are not able to see your data in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can get help in the following ways.

Available to Splunk Observability Cloud customers

Submit a case in the Splunk Support Portal .
Contact Splunk Support .

Available to prospective customers and free trial users

Ask a question and get answers through community support at Splunk Answers .
Join the Splunk #observability user group Slack channel to communicate with customers, partners, and Splunk employees worldwide. To join, see Chat groups in the Get Started with Splunk Community manual.

This page was last updated on Feb 11, 2025.

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