Configure OBI export modes

In Direct mode OBI pushes metrics and traces directly to a remote endpoint using the OpenTelemetry protocol (OTLP).

OBI can also expose a Prometheus HTTP endpoint ready to scrape, for example in pull mode.

For Direct mode, set the OTLP endpoint with OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT. If the endpoint requires authentication, also set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS with the credentials.

For the Prometheus scrape endpoint, see the data export documentation.

Configure and run OBI

This tutorial assumes OBI and OTel Collector are running natively on the same host, so there is no need to secure the traffic nor provide authentication in the OTel Collector OTLP receiver.

Install OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation and download the example configuration file.

First, specify the executable to instrument. For a service executable running on port 443, add the open_port property to the YAML document:

discovery:
  instrument:
    - open_ports: 443

Next, specify where the traces and the metrics are sent. If the OTel collector is running on the local host, it uses port 4318:

otel_metrics_export:
  endpoint: http://localhost:4318
otel_traces_export:
  endpoint: http://localhost:4318

You can specify a combination of otel_metrics_export and otel_traces_export properties to export metrics, traces, or both.

Run OBI with a named configuration file:

obi -config instrument-config.yml

or

OTEL_EBPF_CONFIG_PATH=instrument-config.yml obi