This tutorial walks you through the steps to enable tracing for Java Application using the Datadog Admission Controller.
For other scenarios, including on a host, in a container, on cloud infrastructure, and on applications written in other languages, see the other Enabling Tracing tutorials.
To demonstrate how to instrument your app with the Datadog Admission Controller, this tutorial uses a Java app built with Spring. You can find the code for the app in the springblog GitHub repository.
The repository contains a multi-service Java application pre-configured to be run within Docker and Kubernetes. The sample app is a basic Spring app using REST.
Start and run the sample application
Switch to to the /k8s subdirectory in the springblog repo:
cd springblog/k8s/
Deploy the workload with the depl.yaml file:
kubectl apply -f ./depl.yaml
Verify that it is running with the following command:
kubectl get pods
You should see something like this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
springback-666db7b6b8-dzv7c 1/1 Terminating 0 2m41s
springfront-797b78d6db-p5c84 1/1 Terminating 0 2m41s
The service is started and listens on port 8080. It exposes an /upstream endpoint.
Check that communication takes place by running the following curl command:
To stop the application, run this command from the springblog/k8s directory so you can enable tracing on it:
kubectl delete -f ./depl-with-lib-inj.yaml
Instrument your app with Datadog Admission Controller
After you have your application working, instrument it using the Datadog Admission Controller. In containerized environments, the process is generally:
Label your pod to instruct the Datadog Admission controller to mutate the pod.
There’s no need to add the tracing library because it’s automatically injected. You don’t need to redeploy your app yet. This section of the tutorial steps you through the process of adding Datadog variables and deploying a new image or version of your app.
From the k8s subdirectory, use the following command to install the Datadog Cluster Agent, specifying the values-with-lib-inj.yaml config file and your Datadog API key:
Replace <CONTAINER IMAGE TAG> with the desired library version. Available versions are listed in the Java source repository
Exercise caution when using the latest tag, as major library releases may introduce breaking changes.
The final pod definition should look like the excerpt below. See also the full YAML file in the sample repo. The instructions you added to instrument the app are highlighted:
Run the following command to show that the app and Agent are running:
kubectl get pods
You should see something like this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
datadog-agent-4s8rb 3/3 Running 0 28m
datadog-agent-cluster-agent-5666cffc44-d8qxk 1/1 Running 0 28m
datadog-agent-kube-state-metrics-86f46b8484-mlqp7 1/1 Running 0 28m
springback-666db7b6b8-sb4tp 1/1 Running 0 27m
springfront-797b78d6db-mppbg 1/1 Running 0 27m
Run the following command to see details of the pod:
kubectl describe pod springfront
You should see something like this:
Events:
Type Reason Age From Message
---- ------ ---- ---- -------
Normal Scheduled 32s default-scheduler Successfully assigned default/springfront-797b78d6db-jqjdl to docker-desktop
Normal Pulling 31s kubelet Pulling image "gcr.io/datadoghq/dd-lib-java-init:latest"
Normal Pulled 25s kubelet Successfully pulled image "gcr.io/datadoghq/dd-lib-java-init:latest" in 5.656167878s
Normal Created 25s kubelet Created container datadog-lib-java-init
Normal Started 25s kubelet Started container datadog-lib-java-init
Normal Pulling 25s kubelet Pulling image "pejese/springfront:v2"
Normal Pulled 2s kubelet Successfully pulled image "pejese/springfront:v2" in 22.158699094s
Normal Created 2s kubelet Created container springfront
Normal Started 2s kubelet Started container springfront
As you can see, an init-container is added to your pod. This container includes the Datadog Java tracing libraries to a volume mount. Also JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS is modified to include javaagent. And Datadog-specific environment variables are added to the container:
Verify that the Datadog tracing library is injected into the pod by checking the pod logs. For example:
kubectl logs -f springfront-797b78d6db-jqjdl
You should see something like this:
Defaulted container "springfront" out of: springfront, datadog-lib-java-init (init)
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -javaagent:/datadog-lib/dd-java-agent.jar
View APM traces in Datadog
Run the following command:
curl localhost:8080/upstream
Open the Datadog UI and see the two services reporting under the Service Catalog:
Explore Traces and see the associated Service Map:
Clean up the environment
Clean up your environment with the following command:
kubectl delete -f depl-with-lib-inj.yaml
Library injection with the Admission Controller simplifies service instrumentation, enabling you to view APM traces without changing or rebuilding your application. To learn more, read Datadog Library injection.
Troubleshooting
If you’re not receiving traces as expected, set up debug mode for the Java tracer. To learn more, read Enable debug mode.