Instrumentation

CubeAPM understands Open Telemetry Protocol (OTLP) natively. So it can be used to monitor applications written in a wide variety of programming languages/frameworks. We have documentation for connecting applications written in some of the most popular languages/frameworks in this section (see left sidebar). Documentation for a wider range of languages/frameworks is available on the official Open Telemetry website.

Using CubeAPM with New Relic agents

CubeAPM natively supports New Relic agents as well, i.e., CubeAPM can be used to monitor applications instrumented with New Relic agents as well. Here's how to use New Relic agents with CubeAPM:

By default, New Relic agents send data to New Relic servers. However, if an environment variable NEW_RELIC_HOST is found, the agents send data to the domain mentioned in this environment variable's value instead of sending to New Relic servers. Thus, by adding the environment variable NEW_RELIC_HOST=<domain_of_cubeapm_server> to the application deployment setup, New Relic agent will send data to your CubeAPM servers instead of New Relic servers.

However, there is one more thing that needs to be taken care of. New Relic agents send data using HTTPS on port 443. However, CubeAPM expects data on port 3130 over HTTP. So, a load balancer (or HTTP reverse proxy) is needed to accept data on HTTPS/443 and forward to CubeAPM on HTTP/3130.

That's it! New Relic agents can now be used to send data to CubeAPM.

info

New Relic PHP agent does not support the NEW_RELIC_HOST environment variable. It needs setting the newrelic.daemon.collector_host value in newrelic.ini instead.

info

New Relic Go agent does not read environment variables by default. newrelic.ConfigFromEnvironment() needs to be added to newrelic.NewApplication() as below.

newrelic.NewApplication(
    newrelic.ConfigFromEnvironment(),
    ...
)

Multi-environment setup

If you are using multi-environment feature of CubeAPM, you can set your application’s environment name by setting the app name as per the below format:

# environment variable
NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME=<application_name>[semicolon]<environment_name>

# If the agent config file sets app_name as an array, then
# set the app name as:
# app_name: ['<application_name>', '<environment_name>']

For example:

# environment variable
NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME=order-service;sandbox

# config file
# app_name: ['order-service', 'sandbox']

Troubleshooting

The following command can be tried on the application host server to check connectivity to CubeAPM server(s):

bash

curl -X POST -v -d '[]' 'https://<domain_of_cubeapm_server>/agent_listener/invoke_raw_method?marshal_format=json&protocol_version=17&method=preconnect' -H 'content-type: application/json'

powershell

$uri = 'https://<domain_of_cubeapm_server>/agent_listener/invoke_raw_method?marshal_format=json&protocol_version=17&method=preconnect'
$headers = @{
    'content-type' = 'application/json'
}
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Post -Headers $headers -Body '[]'

Expected response: 200 OK with response message {"return_value":{"redirect_host":"<domain_of_cubeapm_server>"}}

AWS Lambda

For AWS Lambda, instead of setting NEW_RELIC_HOST, set NEW_RELIC_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT as below in your Lambda environment variables.

NEW_RELIC_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT=https://<domain_of_cubeapm_server>/newrelic/aws/lambda/v1

# For multi-environment setup
NEW_RELIC_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT=https://<domain_of_cubeapm_server>/newrelic/aws/lambda/v1/env/<environment_name>

Infinite Tracing

Using New Relic's infinite tracing with CubeAPM is also easy. By adding the environment variable NEW_RELIC_INFINITE_TRACING_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST=<domain_of_cubeapm_server> (and optionally NEW_RELIC_INFINITE_TRACING_TRACE_OBSERVER_PORT=<desired_port>) to the application deployment setup, New Relic agent will send infinite tracing data to your CubeAPM servers instead of New Relic servers. Note that NEW_RELIC_HOST is still required.

In case of infinite tracing, New Relic agents send data using gRPCS on port 443. However, CubeAPM expects data on port 3124 over gRPC. So, a load balancer (or gRPC reverse proxy) is needed to accept data on gRPCS/443 and forward to CubeAPM on gRPC/3124.

info

New Relic PHP agent does not support the NEW_RELIC_INFINITE_TRACING_TRACE_OBSERVER_HOST environment variable. It needs setting the newrelic.infinite_tracing.trace_observer.host value in newrelic.ini instead. Similarly, set newrelic.infinite_tracing.trace_observer.port if needed.

info

In case of Python language, the following package also needs to be installed.

pip install "newrelic[infinite-tracing]"