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Traces from Go on AWS Lambda using OpenTelemetry

Deploy this integration to auto-instrument your Go application running on AWS Lambda and send the traces to your Logz.io account. This is done by adding a dedicated layer for OpenTelemetry collector and configuring environment variables of these layer. This integration will require no change to your application code.

note

This integration only works for the following AWS regions: us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-1, us-west-2, ap-south-1, ap-northeast-3, ap-northeast-2, ap-southeast-1, ap-southeast-2, ap-northeast-1, eu-central-1, eu-west-1, eu-west-2, eu-west-3, eu-north-1, sa-east-1, ca-central-1.

Before you begin, you'll need:

note

Using aws lambda update-function-configuration with --layers replaces all existing layers with the specified ARN(s). To add a new layer without removing existing ones, include all desired layer ARNs in the command, both new and previously attached.

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Adding environmental variables using the AWS CLI commands below, will overwrite all existing variables for your Lambda function.

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This integration uses OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib, not the OpenTelemetry Collector Core.

Add the OpenTelemetry collector layer to your Lambda function​

This layer contains the OpenTelemetry collector that will capture data from your application.

aws lambda update-function-configuration --function-name <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> --layers arn:aws:lambda:<<YOUR-AWS-REGION>>:486140753397:layer:logzio-opentelemetry-collector-<<ARCHITECHTURE>>-0_1_0:1

Replace <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> with the name of your Lambda function running the Go application.

Replace <<YOUR-AWS-REGION>> with the code of your AWS regions, e.g. us-east-1.

Replace <<ARCHITECTURE>> with the target architecture for your Lambda function, either arm64 for ARM-based applications or amd64 (also known as x86_64) for traditional 64-bit Intel/AMD applications.

Create a configuration file for the OpenTelemetry collector​

By default, the OpenTelemetry collector layer exports data to the Lambda console. To customize the collector configuration, you need to add a collector.yaml to your function and specifiy its location via the OPENTELEMETRY_COLLECTOR_CONFIG_FILE environment variable.

The collector.yaml file will have the following configuration:

receivers:
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4317"
      http:
        endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4318"

exporters:
  logzio/traces:
    account_token: "<<TRACING-SHIPPING-TOKEN>>"
    region: "<<LOGZIO_ACCOUNT_REGION_CODE>>"

service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      exporters: [logzio/traces]

Replace <<TRACING-SHIPPING-TOKEN>> with the token of the account you want to ship to.

Replace <LOGZIO_ACCOUNT_REGION_CODE> with the applicable region code.

The tail_sampling defines the decision to sample a trace after the completion of all the spans in a request. By default, this configuration collects all traces that have a span that was completed with an error, all traces that are slower than 1000 ms, and 10% of the rest of the traces.

You can add more policy configurations to the processor. For more on this, refer to OpenTelemetry Documentation.

The configurable parameters in the Logz.io default configuration are:

ParameterDescriptionDefault
threshold_msThreshold for the spand latency - all traces slower than the threshold value will be filtered in.1000
sampling_percentageSampling percentage for the probabilistic policy.10

Direct the OpenTelemetry collector to the configuration file​

Add OPENTELEMETRY_COLLECTOR_CONFIG_FILE variable to direct the OpenTelemetry collector to the configuration file:

aws lambda update-function-configuration --function-name <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> --environment Variables={OPENTELEMETRY_COLLECTOR_CONFIG_FILE=<<PATH_TO_YOUR_COLLECTOR.YAML>>}

Replace <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> with the name of your Lambda function running the Go application.

Replace <<PATH_TO_YOUR_COLLECTOR.YAML>> with the actual path to your collector.yaml file. (If collector.yaml is located in the root directory of your application, use the path /var/task/collector.yaml.)

Activate tracing for your Lambda function​

aws lambda update-function-configuration --function-name <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> --tracing-config Mode=Active

Replace <<YOUR-LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME>> with the name of your Lambda function running the Go application.

Example: Manual Instrumentation for Go Lambda Functions​

Below is a simple example that demonstrates how to instrument a Go-based AWS Lambda function using OpenTelemetry:

package main

import (
    "context"
    "github.com/aws/aws-lambda-go/lambda"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracegrpc"
    sdktrace "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/trace"
    "log"
)

// handler is your Lambda function handler
func handler(ctx context.Context, event any) (string, error) {
    log.Println("Starting function")
    // Configure the OTLP exporter to send traces to an OpenTelemetry Collector
    exporter, err := otlptrace.New(ctx, otlptracegrpc.NewClient(
        otlptracegrpc.WithEndpoint("localhost:4317"), // Replace with your collector endpoint
        otlptracegrpc.WithInsecure(),
    ))
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("Failed to create OTLP trace exporter: %v", err)
    }

    // Set up a trace provider with a batch span processor and the OTLP exporter
    tp := sdktrace.NewTracerProvider(
        sdktrace.WithBatcher(exporter),
    )
    otel.SetTracerProvider(tp)
    // Create a tracer
    tracer := tp.Tracer("example-tracer")

    // Start a span
    _, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "lambda-example-span")
    // Your Lambda logic here
    log.Println("Handling event", span)
    span.End()
    tp.ForceFlush(ctx)
    return "Event handled successfully", nil
}

func main() {
    lambda.Start(handler)
}

This example manually sets up OpenTelemetry tracing within a Go Lambda function, configuring the OTLP exporter to send traces to an OpenTelemetry Collector. Remember to replace localhost:4317 with the actual endpoint of your collector.

For additional information and best practices on instrumenting your Go applications with OpenTelemetry, refer to the OpenTelemetry Go documentation