Collector deployment

Deployment Options

The Dynatrace Collector can be deployed for the following platforms:

Kubernetes

For Kubernetes, the Dynatrace Collector can be deployed in the following ways:

OpenTelemetry Kubernetes Operator
Helm
Raw manifest

Dynatrace access details

Before you deploy the Collector, you need to set up the necessary Kubernetes secrets for the Dynatrace access details.

Use kubectl to create Kuberenetes secrets for the Dynatrace export details. Replace the placeholders with the actual values for the export URL and the API token.

kubectl create secret generic dynatrace-otelcol-dt-api-credentials --from-literal=DT_ENDPOINT=ACTIVEGATE_URL_HERE --from-literal=DT_API_TOKEN=API_TOKEN_HERE

The sample configurations apply a resource limit of 512 megabytes. You may need to adjust this under resources.limits.memory for your particular use case.

Service account

In Kubernetes, it is common to enrich OpenTelemetry signals using the Kubernetes Attributes processor. This requires a Kubernetes service account, which is automatically configured when using Operator or Helm.

For raw manifests, this needs to be configured manually by adding a spec.serviceAccountName: collector entry to the deployment manifest.

Docker

Run the following command to download the image of the Dynatrace Collector:

docker pull ghcr.io/dynatrace/dynatrace-otel-collector/dynatrace-otel-collector:latest

Next, run the Collector image with the following command:

docker run -v $(pwd)/otel-collector-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol/otel-collector-config.yaml ghcr.io/dynatrace/dynatrace-otel-collector/dynatrace-otel-collector:latest --config=/etc/otelcol/otel-collector-config.yaml

The -v parameter maps the local configuration file to the given container path, which is subsequently passed to the --config parameter.

Make sure to map all required network ports with the -p parameter. For example, if you accept OTLP gRPC requests on the default port, you need to specify port 4317. For OTLP over HTTP specify port 4318.

Docker Compose

Use the following configuration in your Compose file to deploy and run the Collector image:

version: "3"
services:
  collector:
    image: ghcr.io/dynatrace/dynatrace-otel-collector/dynatrace-otel-collector:latest
    command: ["--config=/etc/otelcol/otel-collector-config.yaml"]
    volumes:
      - ./otel-collector-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol/otel-collector-config.yaml
    ports:
      - "4317:4317"   # OTLP gRPC
      - "4318:4318"   # OTLP HTTP

In the example above, ports is configured for gRPC and HTTP. Adjust the list of ports according to your specific use case.

Windows, macOS, and Linux

To install the Collector binary manually

Download the latest version for your operating system from GitHub.
Decompress the archive file.
Set up the desired configuration and save it to otel-collector-config.yaml.
Run the dynatrace-otel-collector binary and pass the path to the configuration file using the --config parameter.
```
./dynatrace-otel-collector --config=$(pwd)/otel-collector-config.yaml
```

Linux installer packages

Dynatrace also provides DEB and RPM installer packages for Linux systems on x86-64 and ARM64 architectures.

Required init system

The installer packages require Systemd to be the active init system.

To deploy the Collector using an installer package, download the latest version for your operating system from GitHub, and install it using root privileges and the following commands.

Replace the following two placeholders in the commands with their actual content:

<VERSION> with the version tag of the download
<ARCH> with the system architecture tag (that is, x86_64 or arm64) of the download

Service configuration

When first starting the service, it may fail to start if there is no configuration file in place yet. By default, the Collector attempts to find the file at /etc/dynatrace-otel-collector/config.yaml.

Custom configuration location

If you wish to use a different path, you can override the default path with the --config parameter as part of the OTELCOL_OPTIONS variable in the Systemd environment file at /etc/dynatrace-otel-collector/dynatrace-otel-collector.conf:

OTELCOL_OPTIONS="--config=<HERE-PATH-TO-CONFIG-FILE>"

Subsequent package updates will replace this file, so be sure to back up and restore its content during an update of the Collector package. Alternatively, you can override the configuration with the systemctl edit command.

To see all available configuration options, run the Collector binary with the --help parameter.

After changing the configuration, make sure to restart the service using the following command and root privileges:

systemctl restart dynatrace-otel-collector

Service status

To view the current status of the Collector service, run the following command with root privileges:

systemctl status dynatrace-otel-collector

To check the output of the Collector service, run the following command with root privileges:

journalctl -u dynatrace-otel-collector

Container image registries

Container images for the Dynatrace distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector are available in

GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)
- ghcr.io/dynatrace/dynatrace-otel-collector/dynatrace-otel-collector:latest
Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR)
- public.ecr.aws/dynatrace/dynatrace-otel-collector:latest

Deployment Modes

The Collector can be deployed as a standalone agent, a gateway, or a sidecar.

It's also possible to combine these deployment modes and chain Collector instances. Consider this if you are deploying the Collector in large environments.