These docs are for Cribl Stream 4.9 and are no longer actively maintained.

See the latest version (4.13).

Dynatrace HTTP Destination

The Dynatrace HTTP Destination sends logs to Dynatrace’s SaaS or ActiveGate endpoints.

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

Configure a Dynatrace HTTP Destination

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1. On the top bar, select Products, and then select Cribl Stream. Under Worker Groups, select a Worker Group. Next, you have two options:

   • To configure via QuickConnect, navigate to Routing > QuickConnect (Stream) or Collect (Edge). Select Add Destination and select the Destination you want from the list, choosing either Select Existing.
   • To configure via the Routes, select Data > Destinations (Stream) or More > Destinations (Edge). Select the Destination you want. Next, select Add Destination.

2. In the Destination modal, configure the following under General Settings:

   • Output ID: Enter a unique name to identify this Destination definition. If you clone this Destination, Cribl Stream will add -CLONE to the original Output ID. A Description is optional.
   • Endpoint: Select the type of Dynatrace endpoint where you want to send your data.
     • Cloud: Sends data to Dynatrace’s SaaS endpoint. Provide your Dynatrace Environment ID. This ID uniquely identifies your Dynatrace environment and is required for routing data correctly. You can find your environment ID in your Dynatrace account settings.
     • ActiveGate: Choose this option if you are routing data through an ActiveGate. Provide your Dynatrace Environment ID and ActiveGate domain in the additional fields that appear. Your ActiveGate domain is displayed in your Dynatrace settings in the Details section of an ActiveGate under the Hostname field. The format should be a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address. For example, https://{activeGate-domain}:9999/e/{environment-id}/api/v2/logs/ingest.
     • Manual: Select this option if you want to manually specify the endpoint URL. This is useful for custom setups or non-standard configurations. You will need to enter the full URL in the field that appears. Can be overwritten by an event’s __url field.

3. Next, you can configure the following Optional Settings:

   • Dynatrace processing type: Choose the processing type for your data in Dynatrace. This setting determines how Dynatrace will handle and analyze the incoming data.
     • Grail with OpenPipeline: Logs are processed using Dynatrace’s Grail with OpenPipeline. This allows for advanced log processing and analysis capabilities.
     • Grail without OpenPipeline: Logs are stored and analyzed in Grail without the additional processing provided by OpenPipeline.
     • Log Classic: Uses Dynatrace’s classic log monitoring capabilities without the advanced features of Grail.
     • Other / Unknown: This option provides flexibility for custom or non-standard processing setups in Dynatrace.
   • Backpressure behavior: Select whether to block, drop, or queue events when all receivers are exerting backpressure. (Causes might include a broken or denied connection, or a rate limiter.) Defaults to Block.
   • Tags: Optionally, add tags that you can use to filter and group Destinations in Cribl Stream’s Manage Destinations page. These tags aren’t added to processed events. Use a tab or hard return between (arbitrary) tag names.

4. Select Authentication from the sidebar and select an Authentication type.

   • Auth token: Provide a Dynatrace API access token to authenticate in the Token field. This is the most common method for securing data transmission to Dynatrace. You can generate this token in your Dynatrace account settings under the API tokens section. Ensure that the token has the necessary permissions for the data you are sending.
   • Token (text secret): Create or select a Cribl stored text secret that contains your Dynatrace API access token.

5. Optionally, configure any Persistent Queue, Processing, Retries, and Advanced settings outlined in the below sections.

   • Persistent Queue ensures data durability and reliability by buffering and preserving incoming events when the receiver is down or exhibiting backpressure.
   • Processing Settings allow you to define pre-processing and post-processing Pipelines. This includes adding metadata, applying transformations, and conditioning the data before it’s sent.
   • Retries allow you to specify how the system should handle different HTTP response status codes and timeouts, ensuring reliable data delivery.
   • Advanced Settings offer additional configuration options that enhance the flexibility and performance of data transmission.

   To track data sent via Cribl, you can add a custom attribute in the Extra HTTP headers section under Advanced Settings. For example, select Add Header and enter cribl as the name and yes as the value.

6. Select Save, then Commit & Deploy.

7. Use the Test tab in the Destination’s configuration modal to validate the configuration and connectivity of your Destination.

Persistent Queue Settings

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

On Cribl-managed Cloud Workers (with certain plan/license tiers), this tab exposes only the destructive Clear Persistent Queue button (described below in this section). A maximum queue size of 1 GB disk space is automatically allocated per PQ‑enabled Destination, per Worker Process. The 1 GB limit is on outbound uncompressed data, and no compression is applied to the queue.

This limit is not configurable. If the queue fills up, Cribl Stream will block outbound data. To configure the queue size, compression, queue-full fallback behavior, and other options below, use a hybrid Group.

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 that the queue is allowed to consume on each Worker Process. Once this limit is reached, this Destination will stop queueing data and apply the Queue‑full behavior. Required, and defaults to 5 GB. Accepts positive numbers with units of KB, MB, GB, etc. Can be set as high as 1 TB, unless you’ve configured a different Max PQ size per Worker Process in Group Settings.

Queue file path: The location for the persistent queue files. Defaults to $CRIBL_HOME/state/queues. To this value, Cribl Stream will append /<worker‑id>/<output‑id>.

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: Select this “panic” button if you want to delete the files that are currently queued for delivery to this Destination. A confirmation modal will appear - because this will free up disk space by permanently deleting the queued data, without delivering it to downstream receivers. (Appears only after Output ID has been defined.)

Strict ordering: The default Yes position enables FIFO (first in, first out) event forwarding. When receivers recover, Cribl Stream will send earlier queued events before forwarding newly arrived events. To instead prioritize new events before draining the queue, toggle this off. Doing so will expose this additional control:

• Drain rate limit (EPS): Optionally, set a throttling rate (in events per second) on writing from the queue to receivers. (The default 0 value disables throttling.) Throttling the queue’s drain rate can boost the throughput of new/active connections, by reserving more resources for them. You can further optimize Workers’ startup connections and CPU load at Group Settings > Worker Processes.

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. By default, includes cribl_pipe (identifying the Cribl Stream Pipeline that processed the event). Supports wildcards. Other options include:

• cribl_host – Cribl Stream Node that processed the event.
• cribl_input – Cribl Stream Source that processed the event.
• cribl_output – Cribl Stream Destination that processed the event.
• cribl_route – Cribl Stream Route (or QuickConnect) that processed the event.
• cribl_wp – Cribl Stream Worker Process that processed the event.

Retries

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Honor Retry-After header: Whether to honor a Retry-After header, provided that the header specifies a delay no longer than 180 seconds. Cribl Stream/Edge limits the delay to 180 seconds even if the Retry-After header specifies a longer delay. When enabled, any Retry-After header received takes precedence over all other options configured in the Retries section. When disabled, all Retry-After headers are ignored.

Settings for failed HTTP requests: When you want to automatically retry requests that receive particular HTTP response status codes, use these settings to list those response codes.

For any HTTP response status codes that are not explicitly configured for retries, Cribl Stream/Edge applies the following rules:

Upon receiving a response code that’s on the list, Cribl Stream/Edge first waits for a set time interval called the Pre-backoff interval and then begins retrying the request. Time between retries increases based on an exponential backoff algorithm whose base is the Backoff multiplier, until the backoff multiplier reaches the Backoff limit (ms). At that point, Cribl Stream/Edge continues retrying the request without increasing the time between retries any further.

If the sender (which manages the connection to the Destination) is at capacity, it will not accept any incoming events. These incoming events originate internally from a previous stage of the data flow when Destinations send outbound requests to their respective external services, and they include retry requests and new requests. Any events that were already in transit when the sender reached capacity will continue to be processed downstream.

Sender capacity is freed up when an outgoing request succeeds or encounters a non-retryable error. When the sender has available capacity again, it will resume accepting incoming events. This capacity management is influenced by the number of active connections and configured limits, such as concurrency and buffer sizes. If a Pipeline sends events faster than the Destination can process, the buffers may fill up, leading to backpressure and Sender at capacity warnings. This backpressure prevents the sender from accepting additional requests until capacity is restored.

By default, this Destination has no response codes configured for automatic retries. For each response code you want to add to the list, select Add Setting and configure the following settings:

• HTTP status code: A response code that indicates a failed request, for example 429 (Too Many Requests) or 503 (Service Unavailable).
• Pre-backoff interval (ms): The amount of time to wait before beginning retries, in milliseconds. Defaults to 1000 (one second).
• Backoff multiplier: The base for the exponential backoff algorithm. A value of 2 (the default) means that Cribl Stream/Edge will retry after 2 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 8 seconds, and so on.
• Backoff limit (ms): The maximum backoff interval Cribl Stream/Edge should apply for its final retry, in milliseconds. Default (and minimum) is 10,000 (10 seconds); maximum is 180,000 (180 seconds, or 3 minutes).

Retry timed-out HTTP requests: When you want to automatically retry requests that have timed out, toggle this control on to display the following settings for configuring retry behavior:

• Pre-backoff interval (ms): The amount of time to wait before beginning retries, in milliseconds. Defaults to 1000 (one second).
• Backoff multiplier: The base for the exponential backoff algorithm. A value of 2 (the default) means that Cribl Stream/Edge will retry after 2 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 8 seconds, and so on.
• Backoff limit (ms): The maximum backoff interval Cribl Stream/Edge should apply for its final retry, in milliseconds. Default (and minimum) is 10,000 (10 seconds); maximum is 180,000 (180 seconds, or 3 minutes).

Advanced Settings

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Validate server certs: Reject certificates that are not authorized by a CA in the CA certificate path, nor by another trusted CA (for example, the system’s CA). Defaults to Yes.

Round-robin DNS: Toggle on to enable round-robin DNS lookup across multiple IP addresses, IPv4 and IPv6. When a DNS server resolves a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) to multiple IP addresses, Cribl Stream will sequentially use each address in the order they are returned by the DNS server for subsequent connection attempts.

Compress: Compresses the payload body before sending. Defaults to Yes (recommended).

Keep alive: By default, Cribl Stream sends Keep-Alive headers to the remote server and preserves the connection from the client side up to a maximum of 120 seconds. Toggle this off if you want Cribl Stream to close the connection immediately after sending a request.

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

Request concurrency: Maximum number of concurrent requests per Worker Process. When Cribl Stream hits this limit, it begins throttling traffic to the downstream service. Defaults to 5. Minimum: 1. Maximum: 32.

Max body size (KB): Maximum size of the request body before compression. Defaults to 4096 KB. You can set this limit to as high as 500 MB (512000 KB). Be aware that high values can cause high memory usage per Worker Node, especially if a dynamically constructed URL (see Internal Fields) causes this Destination to send events to more than one URL. 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.

Buffer memory limit (KB): Total amount of memory used to buffer outgoing requests waiting to be sent. If left blank, defaults to 5 times the max body size (if set). If 0, no limit is enforced. This provides granular control over the memory allocated for buffering outgoing batched requests. Increasing the limit allows batches to grow larger before being flushed, improving efficiency for data with high cardinality (a large number of unique batches). Finding the optimal balance between efficient data transfer and memory usage involves adjusting both the Buffer memory limit and Max Body Size settings.

Max events per request: Maximum number of events to include in the request body. The 0 default allows unlimited events.

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

Extra HTTP headers: Name-value pairs to pass to all events as additional HTTP headers. Values will be sent encrypted. You can also add headers dynamically on a per-event basis in the __headers field. See Internal Fields below.

Failed request logging mode: Use this drop-down to determine which data should be logged when a request fails. Select among None (the default), Payload, or Payload + Headers. With this last option, Cribl Stream will redact all headers, except non-sensitive headers that you declare below in Safe headers.

Safe headers: Add headers to declare them as safe to log in plaintext. (Sensitive headers such as authorization will always be redacted, even if listed here.) Use a tab or hard return to separate header names.

Environment: If you’re using GitOps, optionally use this field to specify a single Git branch on which to enable this configuration. If empty, the config will be enabled everywhere.

Internal Fields

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Cribl Stream uses a set of internal fields to assist in forwarding data to a Destination.

Fields for this Destination:

• __criblMetrics
• __url
• __headers

If an event contains the internal field __url, that field’s value will override the General Settings > Endpoint value. This way, you can determine the endpoint URL dynamically.

For example, you could create a Pipeline containing an Eval Function that adds the __url field, and connect that Pipeline to your Dynatrace HTTP Destination. Configure the Eval Function to set __url’s value to a URL that varies depending on a global variable, or on some property of the event, or on some other dynamically-generated value that meets your needs.

If an event contains the internal field __headers, that field’s value will be a JSON object containing Name-value pairs, each of which defines a header. By creating Pipelines that set the value of __headers according to conditions that you specify, you can add headers dynamically.

For example, you could create a Pipeline containing Eval Functions that add the __headers field, and connect that Pipeline to your Dynatrace HTTP Destination. Configure the Eval Functions to set __headers values to Name-value pairs that vary depending on some properties of the event, or on dynamically-generated values that meet your needs.

Here’s an overview of how to add headers:

• To add “dynamic” (a.k.a. “custom”) headers to some events but not others, use the __headers field.
• To define headers to add to all events, use Advanced Settings > Extra HTTP Headers.
• An event can include headers added by both methods. So if you use __headers to add { "api‑key": "foo" } and Extra HTTP Headers to add { "goat": "Kid A" }, you’ll get both headers.
• Headers added via the __headers field take precedence. So if you use __headers to add { "api‑key": "foo" } and Extra HTTP Headers to add { "api‑key": "bar" }, you’ll get only one header, and that will be { "api‑key": "foo" }.

Notes on HTTP-Based Outputs

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• To proxy outbound HTTP/S requests, see System Proxy Configuration.

• Cribl Stream will attempt to use keepalives to reuse a connection for multiple requests. After two minutes of the first use, it will throw away the connection and attempt a new one. This is to prevent sticking to a particular destination when there is a constant flow of events.

• If the server does not support keepalives (or if the server closes a pooled connection while idle), Cribl Stream will establish a new connection for the next request.

• When resolving the Destination’s hostname, Cribl Stream will pick the first IP in the list for use in the next connection. Enable Round‑robin DNS to better balance the distribution of events among destination cluster nodes.

Troubleshoot

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The Destination’s configuration modal has helpful tabs for troubleshooting:

Live Data: Try capturing live data to see real-time events as they flow through the Destination. On the Live Data tab, click Start Capture to begin viewing real-time data.

Logs: Review and search the logs that provide detailed information about the delivery process, including any errors or warnings that may have occurred.

Test: Ensures that the Destination is correctly set up and reachable. Verify that sample events are sent correctly by clicking Run Test.

You can also view the Monitoring page that provides a comprehensive overview of data volume and rate, helping you identify delivery issues. Analyze the graphs showing events and bytes in/out over time.