OpenTelemetry Metric Exporter for Linux user_events usage

[shvez]

I found in documentation this line:

Or real-time monitoring using local Linux tool like [perf](https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page) or ftrace.

I tried this exporter and see that it generates online one event that I can see on Ubuntu as user_event:otlp_metrics. I am a bit new with linux and my question what is next? The only way I found that I can record such events and need custom tool that will read them from file and analyze pay load to show real metric values.

Am I wrong? Is there better way to work with OTLP metrics using perf ?

thank you

[lalitb]

If you are looking for ways to capture the user_events, and deserialize into OTLP structs, you can refer to setup here - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-rust-contrib/blob/main/opentelemetry-user-events-metrics/local-setup/cloud-init.yaml.

[shvez]

tbh, I hopped to see my metrics in realtime, so that I start perf tool can see those metrics. I'm very newbie to this topic and my wish might be too silly, but that is what I would like to get.
Another use case is to visualize data we collected using perf. So the idea is instead of sending to some backend we record files locally and then later get visualization of what they contain.

Can you recommend something that covers this two use cases? is approach with user_events suitable at all?

[lalitb]

You need to create your custom reader to read and decode the user_events in real time.

[shvez]

so, I need custom reader for both realtime and non-realtime processing, right?

[lalitb]

Yes, the perf tool is only for validation and troubleshooting, not something you can use as a real-time receiver. For non-realtime yes, please refer to link I shared how to do that.