Implemented the scope execution engine that creates OTel spans, evaluates
sample expressions to collect telemetry data, and manages span lifecycle
during request and response processing.
The scope runner flt_otel_scope_run() was expanded from a stub into a
complete implementation that evaluates ACL conditions on the scope,
extracts span contexts from HTTP headers when configured, iterates over
the scope's span definitions calling flt_otel_scope_run_span() for each,
marks and finishes completed spans, and cleans up unused runtime
resources.
The span runner flt_otel_scope_run_span() creates OTel spans via the
tracer with optional parent references (from other spans or extracted
contexts), collects telemetry by calling flt_otel_sample_add() for each
configured attribute, event, baggage and status entry, then applies the
collected data to the span (attributes, events with their own key-value
arrays, baggage items, and status code with description) and injects the
span context into HTTP headers when configured.
The sample evaluation layer converts HAProxy sample expressions into OTel
telemetry data. flt_otel_sample_add() evaluates each sample expression
against the stream, converts the result via flt_otel_sample_to_value()
which preserves native types (booleans as OTELC_VALUE_BOOL, integers as
OTELC_VALUE_INT64, all others as strings), and routes the key-value pair
to the appropriate collector based on the sample type (attribute, event,
baggage, or status). The key-value arrays grow dynamically using the
FLT_OTEL_ATTR_INIT_SIZE and FLT_OTEL_ATTR_INC_SIZE constants.
Span finishing is handled in two phases: flt_otel_scope_finish_mark()
marks spans and contexts for completion using exact name matching or
wildcards ("*" for all, "*req*" for request-direction, "*res*" for
response-direction), and flt_otel_scope_finish_marked() ends all marked
spans with a common monotonic timestamp and destroys their contexts.
Connected the OpenTelemetry C wrapper library to the filter lifecycle by
implementing the library initialization, tracer creation, memory and
thread callbacks, shutdown sequence, and span completion.
The flt_otel_lib_init() function now verifies the C wrapper library
version against the compiled headers, calls otelc_init() with the absolute
configuration file path, and creates the tracer via otelc_tracer_create().
On success, it registers HAProxy pool-based memory callbacks
(flt_otel_mem_malloc, flt_otel_mem_free) and a thread ID callback
(flt_otel_thread_id) through otelc_ext_init(), so the C++ SDK allocates
span and context objects from pool_head_otel_span_context. A custom log
handler (flt_otel_log_handler_cb) is registered via otelc_log_set_handler()
to count OTel SDK internal diagnostic messages in the flt_otel_drop_cnt
counter.
The per-thread init callback now starts the tracer thread via
OTELC_OPS(tracer, start) instead of unconditionally returning success.
The deinit callback saves the tracer handle before freeing the
configuration, then shuts down the library via otelc_deinit() after the
pool is destroyed, ensuring the ext callbacks remain valid while the
configuration structures are still being freed. In debug builds, it logs
wrapper statistics, attach counters, and per-event HTX usage counters
before shutdown.
The runtime context cleanup in flt_otel_runtime_context_free() now ends
all active spans with a common monotonic timestamp via
OTELC_OPSR(span, end_with_options) before freeing them. The scope context
cleanup in flt_otel_scope_context_free() now destroys the underlying OTel
span context via OTELC_OPSR(context, destroy).
The parser gained static storage for the debug memory tracker
(OTELC_DBG_MEM) and its initialization in the parse entry point, used when
compiled with the OTELC_DBG_MEM flag.
Replaced the stub filter callbacks with full implementations that dispatch
OTel events through the scope execution engine, and added the supporting
debug, error handling and utility infrastructure.
The filter lifecycle callbacks (init, deinit, init_per_thread) now
initialize the OpenTelemetry C wrapper library, create the tracer from the
instrumentation configuration file, enable HTX stream filtering, and clean
up the configuration and memory pools on shutdown.
The stream callbacks (attach, stream_start, stream_set_backend,
stream_stop, detach, check_timeouts) create the per-stream runtime context
on attach with rate-limit based sampling, fire the corresponding OTel
events (on-stream-start, on-backend-set, on-stream-stop), manage the
idle timeout timer with reschedule logic in detach, and free the runtime
context in check_timeouts. The attach callback also registers the
required pre and post channel analyzers from the instrumentation
configuration.
The channel callbacks (start_analyze, pre_analyze, post_analyze,
end_analyze) register per-channel analyzers, map analyzer bits to event
indices via flt_otel_get_event(), and dispatch the matching events.
The end_analyze callback also fires the on-server-unavailable event
when response analyzers were configured but never executed.
The HTTP callbacks (http_headers, http_end, http_reply, and the debug-only
http_payload and http_reset) dispatch their respective request/response
events based on the channel direction.
The event dispatcher flt_otel_event_run() in event.c iterates over all
scopes matching a given event index and calls flt_otel_scope_run() for
each, sharing a common monotonic and wall-clock timestamp across all spans
within a single event.
Error handling is centralized in flt_otel_return_int() and
flt_otel_return_void(), which implement the hard-error/soft-error policy:
hard errors disable the filter for the stream, soft errors are silently
cleared.
The new debug.h header provides conditional debug macros
(FLT_OTEL_DBG_ARGS, FLT_OTEL_DBG_BUF) and the FLT_OTEL_LOG macro for
structured logging through the instrumentation's log server list. The
utility layer gained debug-only label functions for channel direction,
proxy mode, stream position, filter type, and analyzer bit name lookups.
Added the memory pool management and the runtime scope layer that track
per-stream OTel spans and contexts during request processing.
The pool layer in pool.c manages HAProxy memory pools for the runtime
structures used by the filter: scope spans, scope contexts, runtime
contexts, and span contexts. Each pool is conditionally compiled via
USE_POOL_OTEL_* macros defined in config.h and registered with
REGISTER_POOL(). The allocation functions (flt_otel_pool_alloc,
flt_otel_pool_strndup, flt_otel_pool_free) transparently fall back to
heap allocation when the corresponding pool is not enabled. Trash buffer
helpers (flt_otel_trash_alloc, flt_otel_trash_free) provide scratch space
using either HAProxy's trash chunk pool or direct heap allocation.
The scope layer in scope.c implements the per-stream runtime state. The
flt_otel_runtime_context structure is allocated when a stream starts and
holds the stream and filter references, hard-error/disabled/logging flags
copied from the instrumentation configuration, idle timeout state, a
generated UUID, and lists of active scope spans and extracted scope
contexts. Scope spans (flt_otel_scope_span) carry the operation name,
fetch direction, the OTel span handle, and optional parent references
resolved from other spans or extracted contexts. Scope contexts
(flt_otel_scope_context) hold an extracted span context obtained from
a carrier text map via the tracer. The scope data structures
(flt_otel_scope_data) aggregate growable key-value arrays for attributes
and baggage, a linked list of named events with their own attribute
arrays, and a span status code with description, representing the
telemetry collected during a single event execution.
Implemented the flt_otel_ops_check() callback that validates the parsed
OTel filter configuration after all HAProxy configuration sections have
been processed.
The check callback performs the following validations: resolves deferred
sample fetch arguments under full frontend and backend capabilities,
verifies uniqueness of filter IDs across all proxies, ensures the
instrumentation section and its configuration file are present, checks
for duplicate group and scope section names, verifies that groups are not
empty, resolves group-to-scope and instrumentation-to-group/scope
cross-references by linking placeholder entries to their definitions,
detects unused scopes, counts root spans and warns when the count differs
from one, and accumulates the required channel analyzer bits from all used
scopes into the instrumentation configuration.
The commit also added the flt_otel_counters structure to track per-event
diagnostic counters in debug builds, the FLT_OTEL_ALERT macro for
filter-scoped error messages, and the FLT_OTEL_DBG_LIST macro for
iterating and dumping named configuration lists.
Added the full configuration parser that reads the OTel filter's external
configuration file and the event model that maps filter events to HAProxy
channel analyzers.
The event model in event.h defines an X-macro table
(FLT_OTEL_EVENT_DEFINES) that maps each filter event to its HAProxy
channel analyzer bit, sample fetch direction, and event name. Events
cover stream lifecycle (start, stop, backend-set, idle-timeout), client
and server sessions, request analyzers (frontend and backend TCP and
HTTP inspection, switching rules, sticking rules, RDP cookie), response
analyzers (TCP inspection, HTTP response processing), and HTTP headers,
end, and reply callbacks. The event names are partially compatible with
the SPOE filter. The flt_otel_event_data[] table in event.c is generated
from the same X-macro and provides per-event metadata at runtime.
The parser in parser.c implements section parsers for the three OTel
configuration blocks: otel-instrumentation (tracer identity, log server,
config file path, groups, scopes, ACLs, rate-limit, options for
disabled/hard-errors/nolognorm, and debug-level), otel-group (group
identity and scope list), and otel-scope (scope identity, span definitions
with optional root/parent modifiers, attributes, events, baggages, status
codes, inject/extract context operations, finish lists, idle-timeout,
ACLs, and otel-event binding with optional if/unless ACL conditions).
Each section has a post-parse callback that validates the parsed state.
The top-level flt_otel_parse_cfg() temporarily registers these section
parsers, loads the external configuration file via parse_cfg(), and
handles deferred resolution of sample fetch arguments by saving them in
conf->smp_args for later resolution in flt_otel_check() when full frontend
and backend capabilities are available. The main flt_otel_parse() entry
point was extended to parse the filter ID and config file keywords, verify
that insecure-fork-wanted is enabled, and wire the parsed configuration
into the flt_conf structure.
The utility layer gained flt_otel_strtod() and flt_otel_strtoll() for
validated string-to-number conversion used by rate-limit and debug-level
parsing.
Added the configuration structures that model the OTel filter's
instrumentation hierarchy and the utility functions that support the
configuration parser.
The configuration is organized as a tree rooted at flt_otel_conf, which
holds the proxy reference, filter identity, and lists of groups and
scopes. Below it, flt_otel_conf_instr carries the instrumentation
settings: tracer handle, rate limiting, hard-error mode, logging state,
channel analyzers, and placeholder references to groups and scopes.
Groups (flt_otel_conf_group) aggregate scopes by name. Scopes
(flt_otel_conf_scope) bind an event to its ACL condition, span context
declarations, span definitions and a list of spans scheduled for
finishing. Spans (flt_otel_conf_span) carry attributes, events,
baggages and status entries, each represented as flt_otel_conf_sample
structures that pair a key with concatenated sample-expression arguments.
All configuration types share a common header macro (FLT_OTEL_CONF_HDR)
that embeds an identifier string, its length, a configuration line number,
and a list link. Their init and free functions are generated by the
FLT_OTEL_CONF_FUNC_INIT and FLT_OTEL_CONF_FUNC_FREE macros in
conf_funcs.h, with per-type custom initialization and cleanup bodies.
The utility layer in util.c provides argument counting and concatenation
for the configuration parser, sample data to string conversion covering
boolean, integer, IPv4, IPv6, string and HTTP method types, and debug
helpers for dumping argument arrays and linked list state.
The OpenTelemetry (OTel) filter enables distributed tracing of requests
across service boundaries, export of metrics such as request rates,
latencies and error counts, and structured logging tied to trace context,
giving operators a unified view of HAProxy traffic through any
OpenTelemetry-compatible backend.
The OTel filter is implemented using the standard HAProxy stream filter
API. Stream filters attach to proxies and intercept traffic at each stage
of processing: they receive callbacks on stream creation and destruction,
channel analyzer events, HTTP header and payload processing, and TCP data
forwarding. This allows the filter to collect telemetry data at every
stage of the request/response lifecycle without modifying the core proxy
logic.
This commit added the minimum set of files required for the filter to
compile: the addon Makefile with pkg-config-based detection of the
opentelemetry-c-wrapper library, header files with configuration
constants, utility macros and type definitions, and the source files
containing stub filter operation callbacks registered through
flt_otel_ops and the "opentelemetry" keyword parser entry point.
The filter uses the opentelemetry-c-wrapper library from HAProxy
Technologies, which provides a C interface to the OpenTelemetry C++ SDK.
This wrapper allows HAProxy, a C codebase, to leverage the full
OpenTelemetry observability pipeline without direct C++ dependencies
in the HAProxy source tree.
https://github.com/haproxytech/opentelemetry-c-wrapperhttps://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-cpp
Build options:
USE_OTEL - enable the OpenTelemetry filter
OTEL_DEBUG - compile the filter in debug mode
OTEL_INC - force the include path to the C wrapper
OTEL_LIB - force the library path to the C wrapper
OTEL_RUNPATH - add the C wrapper RUNPATH to the executable
Example build with OTel and debug enabled:
make -j8 USE_OTEL=1 OTEL_DEBUG=1 TARGET=linux-glibc
