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OpenTelemetry (OTel)

Cribl Stream supports sending events to OTLP-compliant targets. (Cribl Stream can receive OTel events through the OTel Source.) Besides native OTel Trace and Metric events, you can send Cribl Stream’s Gauge metric events through this OTel Destination.

When configuring Pipelines (including pre-processing and post-processing Pipelines), you need to ensure that events sent to this Destination conform to the relevant Protobuf specification:

The OTel Destination will drop non-conforming events. Also, when trying to convert an event to OTLP, if the Destination encounters a parsing error, it discards the event, and Cribl Streams logs the error.

Type: Streaming | TLS Support: Configurable | PQ Support: Yes

Configuring Cribl Stream to Output to OTel
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From the top nav, click Manage, then select a Worker Group to configure. Next, you have two options:

To configure via the graphical QuickConnect UI, click Routing > QuickConnect (Stream) or Collect (Edge). Next, click + Add Destination at right. From the resulting drawer’s tiles, select OpenTelemetry. Next, click either + Add Destination or (if displayed) Select Existing. The resulting drawer will provide the options below.

Or, to configure via the Routing UI, click Data > Destinations (Stream) or More > Destinations (Edge). From the resulting page’s tiles or the Destinations left nav, select OpenTelemetry. Next, click New Destination to open a New Destination modal that provides the options below.

General Settings
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Output ID: Enter a unique name to identify this OTel output definition.

Endpoint: Where to send events, in any of a variety of formats (FQDN, PQDN, IP address and port, etc). Supports both IPv4 and IPv6 – IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets. The same endpoint is used for both Traces and Metrics. If no port is specified, we normally default to the standard port for OTel Collectors, 4137 – however, if TLS is enabled or the endpoint is an HTTPS-based URL, we default instead to port 443.

Optional Settings
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Backpressure behavior: Whether to block, drop, or queue events when all receivers are exerting backpressure.

Tags: Optionally, add tags that you can use for filtering and grouping at the final destination. Use a tab or hard return between (arbitrary) tag names.

TLS Settings (Client Side)
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Enabled Defaults to No. When toggled to Yes:

Validate server certs: Toggle to Yes to reject certificates that are not authorized by a CA in the CA certificate path, nor by another trusted CA (e.g., the system’s CA).

Minimum TLS version: Optionally, select the minimum TLS version to use when connecting.

Maximum TLS version: Optionally, select the maximum TLS version to use when connecting.

Certificate name: The name of the predefined certificate.

CA certificate path: Path on client containing CA certificates (in PEM format) to use to verify the server’s cert. Path can reference $ENV_VARS.

Private key path (mutual auth): Path on client containing the private key (in PEM format) to use. Path can reference $ENV_VARS. Use only if mutual auth is required.

Certificate path (mutual auth): Path on client containing certificates in (PEM format) to use. Path can reference $ENV_VARS. Use only if mutual auth is required.

Passphrase: Passphrase to use to decrypt private key.

Authentication
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Select one of the following options for authentication:

  • None: Don’t use authentication.

  • Auth token: Enter the bearer token that must be included in the authorization header. Since OpenTelemetry runs over gRPC, authorization headers are sent as Metadata entries which are essentially key-value pairs. E.g.: Bearer <your-configured-token>.

  • Auth token (text secret): This option exposes a drop-down in which you can select a stored text secret that references the bearer token described above. A Create link is available to store a new, reusable secret.

  • Basic: This default option displays fields for you to enter HTTP Basic authentication credentials.

  • Basic (credentials secret): This option exposes a Credentials secret drop-down, in which you can select a stored text secret that references the Basic authentication credentials described above. A Create link is available to store a new, reusable secret.

Persistent Queue Settings
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This tab is displayed when the Backpressure behavior is set to Persistent Queue.

On Cribl-managed Cribl.Cloud Workers (with an Enterprise plan), this tab exposes only the Clear Persistent Queue button. A maximum queue size of 1 GB disk space is automatically allocated per Worker Process.

Max file size: The maximum data volume to store in each queue file before closing it. Enter a numeral with units of KB, MB, etc. Defaults to 1 MB.

Max queue size: The maximum amount of disk space the queue is allowed to consume. Once this limit is reached, queueing is stopped and data blocking is applied. Enter a numeral with units of KB, MB, etc.

Queue file path: The location for the persistent queue files. This will be of the form: your/path/here/<worker-id>/<output-id>. Defaults to: $CRIBL_HOME/state/queues.

Compression: Codec to use to compress the persisted data, once a file is closed. Defaults to None. Gzip is also available.

Queue-full behavior: Whether to block or drop events when the queue is exerting backpressure (because disk is low or at full capacity). Block is the same behavior as non-PQ blocking, corresponding to the Block option on the Backpressure behavior drop-down. Drop new data throws away incoming data, while leaving the contents of the PQ unchanged.

Clear persistent queue: Click this button if you want to flush out files that are currently queued for delivery to this Destination. A confirmation modal will appear. (Appears only after Output ID has been defined.)

Processing Settings
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Post‑Processing
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Pipeline: Pipeline to process data before sending the data out using this output.

System fields: A list of fields to automatically add to events that use this output – both metric events, as dimensions; and log events, as labels. Supports wildcards.

By default, includes cribl_host (Cribl Stream Node that processed the event).

Other options include:

  • cribl_pipe – Cribl Stream Pipeline that processed the event.
  • cribl_input – Cribl Stream Source that processed the event.
  • cribl_output – Cribl Stream Destination that processed the event.
  • cribl_wp — Cribl Stream Worker Process that processed the event.

Advanced Settings
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Connection Timeout: Amount of time (milliseconds) to wait for the connection to establish before retrying. Defaults to 10000 (10 sec.).

Request timeout: Amount of time (in seconds) to wait for a request to complete before aborting it. Defaults to 30 sec.

Request concurrency: Maximum number of concurrent requests before blocking. This is set per Worker Process. Defaults to 5.

Keep Alive Time (seconds): How often the sender should ping the peer to keep the connection alive. Defaults to 30.

Max body size (KB): Maximum size of the request body before compression. Defaults to 4096 KB. The actual request body size might exceed the specified value because the Destination adds bytes when it writes to the downstream receiver. Cribl recommends that you experiment with the Max body size value until downstream receivers reliably accept all events.

Flush period (sec): Maximum time between requests. Low values could cause the payload size to be smaller than the configured Max body size. Defaults to 1 sec.

Metadata: Extra information to send with each gRPC request in the form of a list of key-value pairs. Value supports JavaScript expressions that are evaluated just once, when the destination gets started. If passing credentials as metadata, using C.Secret is recommended.

Environment: Optionally, specify a single Git branch on which to enable this configuration. If this field is empty, the config will be enabled everywhere.