Language agents and distributed tracing

Here's one way you can see traces for a particular service:

1. Go to one.newrelic.com.
2. Click APM in the top menu bar.
3. Click your service.
4. In the left navigation's Monitor section, click Distributed tracing.
5. If you don't see the traces you want, you can filter by the trace.id.

This option allows you to search all traces across all New Relic accounts in your organization that you have access to.

1. Go to one.newrelic.com.
2. Click Browse data in the top menu bar, and then click Traces.
3. Select your entity in the left pane.
4. If you don't see the traces you want, you can filter by the trace.id.

You can bring your logs and application's data together to make troubleshooting easier and faster. With logs in context, you can see log messages related to your errors and traces directly in your app's UI.

1. From the Transactions page, click on a trace to go to the Trace details page.
2. From the trace details page, click See logs.
3. To view details related to an individual log message, click directly on the message.

Infinite tracing is not available for C SDK.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Enable distributed tracing for your Go applications.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Java agent configuration: Config file.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see .NET agent configuration.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Node.js agent configuration.

distributed_tracing: {
  enabled: true
}
infinite_tracing: {
  trace_observer: {
    host: 'YOUR_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST'
  }
}

NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true
NEW_RELIC_INFINITE_TRACING_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST="YOUR_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST"

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Distributed tracing for the PHP agent

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Python agent configuration

pip install newrelic[infinite-tracing]

distributed_tracing.enabled = true
infinite_tracing.trace_observer_host= YOUR_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST

NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true
NEW_RELIC_INFINITE_TRACING_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST="YOUR_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST"

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Ruby agent configuration.

To set up Infinite Tracing, you need to install the Infinite Tracing gem. The gem is available in rubygems.org. For applications using Bundler, additionally include the Infinite Tracing gem in the Gemfile:

gem 'newrelic-infinite_tracing'

If you're using Rails 3 or higher, or Rails 2.3 in the recommended configuration, Rails will automatically call Bundler.require and cause newrelic-infinite_tracing to be required during startup of your application. If you're using Sinatra or another framework, you must manually call require 'newrelic/infinite_tracing' or manually call Bundler.require.

Install (compile) or update to the required C SDK version. For best results, update to the latest C SDK version.

Install or update to the required Go agent version. For best results, update to the latest Go agent version.

Install or update to the required Java agent version. For best results, update to the latest Java agent version.

Install or update to the required .NET agent version. For best results, update to the latest .NET agent version.

Install or update to the required Node.js agent version. For best results, update to the latest Node.js agent version.

Install or update to the required PHP agent version. For best results, update to the latest PHP agent version.

Install or update to the required Python agent version. For best results, update to the latest Python agent version.

Install or update to the required Ruby agent version. For Infinite Tracing, you also need to install the Infinite Tracing gem. For best results, update to the latest Ruby agent version and Infinite Tracing gem version, if applicable.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Enable distributed tracing for your C applications.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Enable distributed tracing for your Go applications.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Java agent configuration: Config file.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see .NET agent configuration.

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Node.js agent configuration.

distributed_tracing: {
  enabled: true
}

NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Distributed tracing for the PHP agent

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Python agent configuration

distributed_tracing.enabled = true

NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true

Here's an overview of the settings. For more help with configuration, see Ruby agent configuration.

To instrument the calling service:

1. Ensure the version of the APM agent that monitors the calling service supports distributed tracing.

2. Invoke the agent API call for generating a distributed trace payload: C SDK | Go | Java | .NET | Node.js | PHP | Python | Ruby.

   Important

   To maintain proper ordering of spans in a trace, ensure you generate the payload in the context of the span that sends it.

3. Add that payload to the call made to the destination service (for example, in a header).

4. (Optional) Identify the call as an external call:

   • C SDK
   • Go
   • Java
   • .NET: n/a
   • Node.js
   • PHP: n/a
   • Python
   • Ruby

To instrument the called service:

1. Ensure the version of the APM agent that monitors the called service supports distributed tracing.

2. If the New Relic agent on the called service does not identify a New Relic transaction, use the agent API to declare a transaction:

   C SDK

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: when newrelic_create_distributed_trace_payload() is called, a NULL pointer is returned. To solve this problem, follow the procedures to create a transaction with the C SDK.

   Go

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: when Transaction.InsertDistributedTraceHeaders(h http.Header) is called, no headers are inserted. To create a transaction, see Instrument Go transactions.

   Java

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: when Transaction.insertDistributedTraceHeaders(Headers) is called, no headers are inserted (this API requires agent 6.4.0+). To create a transaction, see Java agent transaction-related APIs.

   .NET

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: CreateDistributedTracePayload() returns an empty payload. To create a transaction, see Introduction to .NET custom instrumentation.

   Node.js

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: the Node.js agent logs will report an error similar to this:

   No transaction found when calling Transaction.acceptDistributedTracePayload.

   Copy

   Use startWebTransaction to create a web transaction or startBackgroundTransaction to capture a non-web transaction.

   PHP

   One way to tell that a transaction is not in progress: newrelic_insert_distributed_trace_headers() returns false. To create a transaction, see newrelic_start_transaction.

   Python

   To tell that a transaction is not in progress: when transaction = current_transaction() is run, transaction is None. Or, if result = accept_distributed_trace_payload(payload) is run, then the result is False.

   Use background_task to report a non-web transaction. For more on Python instrumentation, see Monitor transactions and segments.

   Ruby

   If you are using a Rack-based web framework and have enabled New Relic's Rack instrumentation, the Ruby agent will handle starting a transaction for you. For other use cases, see the add_transaction_tracer API method.

3. Extract the payload from the call that you received (for example, in a header).

4. Invoke the call for accepting the payload: C SDK | Go | Java | .NET | PHP | Node.js | Python | Ruby.