OpenTelemetry Operator for Kubernetes

Introduction

The OpenTelemetry Operator is an implementation of a Kubernetes Operator.

The operator manages:

• OpenTelemetry Collector
• auto-instrumentation of the workloads using OpenTelemetry instrumentation libraries

Getting started

To install the operator in an existing cluster, make sure you have cert-manager installed and run:

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-operator/releases/latest/download/opentelemetry-operator.yaml

Once the opentelemetry-operator deployment is ready, create an OpenTelemetry Collector (otelcol) instance, like:

$ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
  name: simplest
spec:
  config: |
    receivers:
      otlp:
        protocols:
          grpc:
          http:
    processors:

    exporters:
      logging:

    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [otlp]
          processors: []
          exporters: [logging]
EOF

For more configuration options and for setting up the injection of auto-instrumentation of the workloads using OpenTelemetry instrumentation libraries, continue reading here.