in-docker

OpenTelemetry Collector in Docker

This example demonstrates how to run the OpenTelemetry Collector in Docker and send spans to it.

Prerequisites

• Docker installed on your machine
• A Dash0 account with API credentials

Setup

1. Copy the .env.template file to .env in the project root:

   cp ../../.env.template ../../.env

2. Update the .env file with your Dash0 credentials:

   • DASH0_AUTH_TOKEN - Your Dash0 API token
   • DASH0_DATASET - The dataset to send telemetry data to
   • Other environment variables can be left as their defaults or customized

Running the Collector

Run the OpenTelemetry Collector in a Docker container:

./00_run.sh

This will:

• Start the OpenTelemetry Collector in Docker
• Expose ports 4317 (gRPC) and 4318 (HTTP) for receiving telemetry
• Mount the local config.yaml into the container
• Pass environment variables from your .env file to the container

Sending Test Spans

To test the collector, you can send two sample spans (one of which will be dropped):

./01_send-spans.sh

This script sends a sample trace span to the collector using the HTTP endpoint (port 4318). The collector will:

1. Process the span with the configured batch processor
2. Filter matching spans
3. Output the span to the debug exporter (visible in logs)
4. Forward the span to Dash0 using the OTLP exporter

Sending Test Logs

The collector is also configured to transform logs using the transform processor:

./02_send-logs.sh

This script sends a sample log to the collector using the HTTP endpoint (port 4318). The collector will:

1. Process the log with the configured batch processor
2. Set the missing timestamp fields
3. Output the span to the debug exporter (visible in logs)
4. Forward the span to Dash0 using the OTLP exporter