Configure Dapr to send distributed tracing data

It is recommended to run Dapr with tracing enabled for any production scenario. You can configure Dapr to send tracing and telemetry data to many backends based on your environment, whether it is running in the cloud or on-premises.

Tracing configuration

The tracing section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

spec:
  tracing:
    samplingRate: "1"
    zipkin:
      endpointAddress: "https://..."

The following table lists the properties for tracing:

Zipkin in self hosted mode

The following steps show you how to configure Dapr to send distributed tracing data to Zipkin running as a container on your local machine and view them.

For self hosted mode, create a Dapr configuration file locally and reference it with the Dapr CLI.

1. Create the following config.yaml YAML file:

   apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
   kind: Configuration
   metadata:
     name: zipkin
     namespace: default
   spec:
     tracing:
       samplingRate: "1"
       zipkin:
         endpointAddress: "http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans"
   

2. Launch Zipkin using Docker:

   docker run -d -p 9411:9411 openzipkin/zipkin
   

3. Launch Dapr with the --config param with the path for where the config.yaml is saved :

   dapr run --app-id mynode --app-port 3000 --config ./config.yaml node app.js
   

Zipkin in Kubernetes mode

The following steps show you how to configure Dapr to send distributed tracing data to Zipkin running as a container in your Kubernetes cluster, and how to view them.

Setup

First, deploy Zipkin:

kubectl create deployment zipkin --image openzipkin/zipkin

Create a Kubernetes Service for the Zipkin pod:

kubectl expose deployment zipkin --type ClusterIP --port 9411

Next, create the following YAML file locally:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: zipkin
  namespace: default
spec:
  tracing:
    samplingRate: "1"
    zipkin:
      endpointAddress: "http://zipkin.default.svc.cluster.local:9411/api/v2/spans"

Finally, deploy the Dapr configuration:

kubectl apply -f config.yaml

In order to enable this configuration for your Dapr sidecar, add the following annotation to your pod spec template:

annotations:
  dapr.io/config: "zipkin"

That’s it! Your sidecar is now configured for use with Zipkin.

Viewing Tracing Data

To view traces, connect to the Zipkin service and open the UI:

kubectl port-forward svc/zipkin 9411:9411

On your browser, go to http://localhost:9411 and you should see the Zipkin UI.

References

• Zipkin for distributed tracing