# README
Zipkin Input Plugin
This plugin implements the Zipkin http server to gather trace and timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in microservice architectures.
Please Note: This plugin is experimental; Its data schema may be subject to change based on its main usage cases and the evolution of the OpenTracing standard.
[!IMPORTANT] This plugin will create high cardinality data, so please take this into account when sending data to your output!
Service Input
This plugin is a service input. Normal plugins gather metrics determined by the interval setting. Service plugins start a service to listens and waits for metrics or events to occur. Service plugins have two key differences from normal plugins:
- The global or plugin specific
interval
setting may not apply - The CLI options of
--test
,--test-wait
, and--once
may not produce output for this plugin
Global configuration options
In addition to the plugin-specific configuration settings, plugins support additional global and plugin configuration settings. These settings are used to modify metrics, tags, and field or create aliases and configure ordering, etc. See the CONFIGURATION.md for more details.
Configuration
# Gather data from a Zipkin server including trace and timing data
[[inputs.zipkin]]
## URL path for span data
# path = "/api/v1/spans"
## Port on which Telegraf listens
# port = 9411
## Maximum duration before timing out read of the request
# read_timeout = "10s"
## Maximum duration before timing out write of the response
# write_timeout = "10s"
The plugin accepts spans in JSON
or thrift
if the Content-Type
is
application/json
or application/x-thrift
, respectively. If Content-Type
is not set, then the plugin assumes it is JSON
format.
Tracing
This plugin uses Annotations tags and fields to track data from spans
-
TRACE
is a set of spans that share a single root span. Traces are built by collecting all Spans that share a traceId. -
SPAN
is a set of Annotations and BinaryAnnotations that correspond to a particular RPC. -
Annotations
create a metric for each annotation & binary annotation of a span. This records an occurrence in time at the beginning and end of each request.Annotations may have the following values:
CS
(client start) marks the beginning of the span, a request is made.SR
(server receive) marks the point in time the server receives the request and starts processing it. Network latency & clock jitters distinguish this fromCS
.SS
(server send) marks the point in time the server is finished processing and sends a request back to client. The difference toSR
denotes the amount of time it took to process the request.CR
(client receive) marks the end of the span, with the client receiving the response from server. RPC is considered complete with this annotation.
Metrics
duration_ns
the time in nanoseconds between the end and beginning of a span
Tags
id
the 64-bit ID of the span.parent_id
an ID associated with a particular child span. If there is no child span,parent_id
is equal toid
trace_id
the 64-bit or 128-bit ID of a particular trace. Every span in a trace uses this ID.name
defines a span
Annotations have these additional tags
service_name
defines a serviceannotation
the value of an annotationendpoint_host
listening IPv4 address and, if present, port
Binary Annotations have these additional tag
service_name
defines a serviceannotation
the value of an annotationendpoint_host
listening IPv4 address and, if present, portannotation_key
label describing the annotation
Example Output
The Zipkin data
[
{
"trace_id": 2505404965370368069,
"name": "Child",
"id": 8090652509916334619,
"parent_id": 22964302721410078,
"annotations": [],
"binary_annotations": [
{
"key": "lc",
"value": "dHJpdmlhbA==",
"annotation_type": "STRING",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
}
],
"timestamp": 1498688360851331,
"duration": 53106
},
{
"trace_id": 2505404965370368069,
"name": "Child",
"id": 103618986556047333,
"parent_id": 22964302721410078,
"annotations": [],
"binary_annotations": [
{
"key": "lc",
"value": "dHJpdmlhbA==",
"annotation_type": "STRING",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
}
],
"timestamp": 1498688360904552,
"duration": 50410
},
{
"trace_id": 2505404965370368069,
"name": "Parent",
"id": 22964302721410078,
"annotations": [
{
"timestamp": 1498688360851325,
"value": "Starting child #0",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
},
{
"timestamp": 1498688360904545,
"value": "Starting child #1",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
},
{
"timestamp": 1498688360954992,
"value": "A Log",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
}
],
"binary_annotations": [
{
"key": "lc",
"value": "dHJpdmlhbA==",
"annotation_type": "STRING",
"host": {
"ipv4": 2130706433,
"port": 0,
"service_name": "trivial"
}
}
],
"timestamp": 1498688360851318,
"duration": 103680
}
]
generated the following metrics
zipkin,id=7047c59776af8a1b,name=child,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=53106000i 1498688360851331000
zipkin,annotation=trivial,annotation_key=lc,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=7047c59776af8a1b,name=child,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=53106000i 1498688360851331000
zipkin,id=17020eb55a8bfe5,name=child,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=50410000i 1498688360904552000
zipkin,annotation=trivial,annotation_key=lc,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=17020eb55a8bfe5,name=child,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=50410000i 1498688360904552000
zipkin,id=5195e96239641e,name=parent,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=103680000i 1498688360851318000
zipkin,annotation=Starting\ child\ #0,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=5195e96239641e,name=parent,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=103680000i 1498688360851318000
zipkin,annotation=Starting\ child\ #1,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=5195e96239641e,name=parent,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=103680000i 1498688360851318000
zipkin,annotation=A\ Log,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=5195e96239641e,name=parent,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=103680000i 1498688360851318000
zipkin,annotation=trivial,annotation_key=lc,endpoint_host=127.0.0.1,id=5195e96239641e,name=parent,parent_id=5195e96239641e,service_name=trivial,trace_id=22c4fc8ab3669045 duration_ns=103680000i 1498688360851318000