Autodiscovery Container Identifiers

This document explains how to apply an Autodiscovery configuration template to a specific container. The ad_identifiers parameter can match a container image name or a custom identifier.

Container image name

To apply the following Autodiscovery configuration template to a given container, replace <AUTODISCOVERY_IDENTIFIER> with the short container image name:

ad_identifiers:
  <AUTODISCOVERY_IDENTIFIER>

init_config:
  <INIT_CONFIG>

instances:
  <INSTANCES_CONFIG>

Example: The following Apache Autodiscovery configuration template applies to a container image named httpd:

ad_identifiers:
  - httpd
init_config:
instances:
  - apache_status_url: http://%%host%%/server-status?auto
logs:
  source: apache
  service: webapp

This matches any httpd container image on your host. If you have one container running foo/httpd:latest and another running bar/httpd:v2, the Agent applies the above template to both containers.

When using short image names as Autodiscovery container identifiers, the Agent cannot distinguish between identically named images from different sources or with different tags.

Multiple identifiers

Specify multiple image names by adding to the ad_identifiers list, for example:

ad_identifiers:
  - httpd
  - my-custom-httpd-image

This matches any container images on your host that match httpd or my-custom-httpd-image.

Custom Autodiscovery container identifiers

If you want to apply different configuration templates to containers running the same image, use custom container identifiers.

  1. Supply a custom container identifier to your container using a Docker label or Kubernetes annotation.

    Example: Apply a Docker label or Kubernetes annotation to identify your container as foo:

      LABEL com.datadoghq.ad.check.id="foo"

      Note: The com.datadoghq.ad.check.id label takes precedence over the image name.

      ad.datadoghq.com/<CONTAINER_NAME>.check.id: 'foo'

      Replace <CONTAINER_NAME> with the container name within the pod.

      Note: Supported in Datadog Agent v6.25+ and v7.25. The ad.datadoghq.com/<CONTAINER_NAME>.check.id label takes precedence over the image name.

    • Reference this custom value in your Autodiscovery configuration template.

      Example: The following Apache Autodiscovery configuration template designates a container image with the custom name foo:

      ad_identifiers:
  - foo
init_config:
instances:
  - apache_status_url: http://%%host%%/server-status?auto
logs:
  source: apache
  service: webapp

    Further Reading

    Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

    Configure integrations with Autodiscovery on KubernetesDOCUMENTATION more more Configure integrations with Autodiscovery on DockerDOCUMENTATION more more Manage which Container to include in the Agent AutodiscoveryDOCUMENTATION more more