Tracing Java Applications

Compatibility requirements

The Java Tracing Library supports all JVMs on all platforms version 7 and higher. To utilize tracing with the Continuous Profiler, OpenJDK 11+, Oracle Java 11+, OpenJDK 8 for most vendors (version 8u262+) and Zulu Java 8+ (minor version 1.8.0_212+) are supported. Starting in version 8u272+, all vendors will be supported for the Profiler.

All JVM-based languages, such as Scala (versions 2.10.x - 2.13.x), Groovy, Kotlin, and Clojure are supported in the Java tracer and profiler. For a full list of supported libraries, visit the Compatibility Requirements page.

When you set up tracing, you’re also setting up Continuous Profiler, and you need only enable Profiler to start receiving profiling data from your app.

Installation and getting started

Follow the in-app documentation (recommended)

Follow the Quickstart instructions within the Datadog app for the best experience, including:

• Step-by-step instructions scoped to your deployment configuration (hosts, Docker, Kubernetes, or Amazon ECS).
• Dynamically set service, env and version tags.
• Enable the Continuous Profiler, ingesting 100% of traces, and Trace ID injection into logs during setup.

Java installation

Otherwise, to begin tracing your applications:

1. Download dd-java-agent.jar that contains the latest Agent class files:

   wget -O dd-java-agent.jar https://dtdg.co/latest-java-tracer
   

   To access a specific version of the tracer, visit Datadog’s Maven repository.

2. To run your app from an IDE, Maven or Gradle application script, or java -jar command, with continuous profiler, deployment tracking, logs injection (if you are sending logs to Datadog), and Tracing without Limits, add the -javaagent JVM argument and the following configuration options, as applicable:

   java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.profiling.enabled=true -XX:FlightRecorderOptions=stackdepth=256 -Ddd.logs.injection=true -Ddd.trace.sample.rate=1 -Ddd.service=my-app -Ddd.env=staging -jar path/to/your/app.jar -Ddd.version=1.0
   

   Note: Enabling profiling may have an impact on your bill depending on your APM bundle. See the pricing page for more information.

Additional configuration options are described below.

3. Ensure the Datadog Agent is configured for APM and reachable from your application via the environment specific instructions below.

Configure the Datadog Agent for APM

Install and configure the Datadog Agent to receive traces from your now instrumented application. By default the Datadog Agent is enabled in your datadog.yaml file under apm_config with enabled: true and listens for trace traffic at localhost:8126. For containerized environments, follow the links below to enable trace collection within the Datadog Agent.

• Dropdown

1. Set apm_non_local_traffic: true in the apm_config section of your main datadog.yaml configuration file.

2. See the specific setup instructions to ensure that the Agent is configured to receive traces in a containerized environment:

3. After having instrumented your application, the tracing client sends traces to localhost:8126 by default. If this is not the correct host and port, change it by setting the below env variables:

   DD_AGENT_HOST and DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT.

   java -javaagent:<DD-JAVA-AGENT-PATH>.jar -jar <YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH>.jar
   

   You can also use system properties:

   java -javaagent:<DD-JAVA-AGENT-PATH>.jar \
       -Ddd.agent.host=$DD_AGENT_HOST \
       -Ddd.agent.port=$DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT \
       -jar <YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH>.jar
   

4. Set DD_SITE in the Datadog Agent to to ensure the Agent sends data to the right Datadog location.

To set up Datadog APM in AWS Lambda, see the Tracing Serverless Functions documentation.

Tracing is available for a number of other environments, such as Heroku, Cloud Foundry, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and Azure App Service.

For other environments, please refer to the Integrations documentation for that environment and contact support if you are encountering any setup issues.

Add the Java Tracer to the JVM

Use the documentation for your application server to figure out the right way to pass in -javaagent and other JVM arguments. Here are instructions for some commonly used frameworks:

JAVA_OPTS=-javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar

CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar"

set CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -javaagent:"c:\path\to\dd-java-agent.jar"

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar"

set "JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -javaagent:X:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar"

JAVA_OPTIONS="${JAVA_OPTIONS} -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar"

-javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar

-javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar

Note

• If you’re adding the -javaagent argument to your java -jar command, it needs to be added before the -jar argument, that is as a JVM option, not as an application argument. For example:

  java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -jar my_app.jar
  

  For more information, see the Oracle documentation.

• Never add dd-java-agent to your classpath. It can cause unexpected behavior.

Automatic instrumentation

Automatic instrumentation for Java uses the java-agent instrumentation capabilities provided by the JVM. When a java-agent is registered, it has the ability to modify class files at load time.

Instrumentation may come from auto-instrumentation, the OpenTracing api, or a mixture of both. Instrumentation generally captures the following info:

• Timing duration is captured using the JVM’s nanotime clock unless a timestamp is provided from the OpenTracing API
• Key/value tag pairs
• Errors and stacktraces which are unhandled by the application
• A total count of traces (requests) flowing through the system

Configuration

All configuration options below have system property and environment variable equivalents. If the same key type is set for both, the system property configuration takes priority. System properties can be set as JVM flags.

Note: When using the Java tracer’s system properties, make sure that they are listed before -jar so they get read in as JVM options.

dd.service

Environment Variable: DD_SERVICE
Default: unnamed-java-app
The name of a set of processes that do the same job. Used for grouping stats for your application. Available for versions 0.50.0+.

dd.tags

Environment Variable: DD_TAGS
Default: null
Example: layer:api,team:intake
A list of default tags to be added to every span, profile, and JMX metric. If DD_ENV or DD_VERSION is used, it will override any env or version tag defined in DD_TAGS. Available for versions 0.50.0+.

dd.env

Environment Variable: DD_ENV
Default: none
Your application environment (e.g. production, staging, etc.). Available for versions 0.48+.

dd.version

Environment Variable: DD_VERSION
Default: null
Your application version (e.g. 2.5, 202003181415, 1.3-alpha, etc.). Available for versions 0.48+.

dd.logs.injection

Environment Variable: DD_LOGS_INJECTION
Default: false
Enabled automatic MDC key injection for Datadog trace and span IDs. See Advanced Usage for details.

dd.trace.config

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_CONFIG
Default: null
Optional path to a file where configuration properties are provided one per each line. For instance, the file path can be provided as via -Ddd.trace.config=<FILE_PATH>.properties, with setting the service name in the file with dd.service=<SERVICE_NAME>

dd.service.mapping

Environment Variable: DD_SERVICE_MAPPING
Default: null
Example: mysql:my-mysql-service-name-db, postgres:my-postgres-service-name-db
Dynamically rename services via configuration. Useful for making databases have distinct names across different services.

dd.writer.type

Environment Variable: DD_WRITER_TYPE
Default: DDAgentWriter
Default value sends traces to the Agent. Configuring with LoggingWriter instead writes traces out to the console.

dd.agent.host

Environment Variable: DD_AGENT_HOST
Default: localhost
Hostname for where to send traces to. If using a containerized environment, configure this to be the host IP. See Tracing Docker Applications for more details.

dd.trace.agent.port

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT
Default: 8126
Port number the Agent is listening on for configured host.

dd.trace.agent.unix.domain.socket

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_AGENT_UNIX_DOMAIN_SOCKET
Default: null
This can be used to direct trace traffic to a proxy, to later be sent to a remote Datadog Agent.

dd.trace.agent.url

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL
Default: null
The URL to send traces to. This can start with http:// to connect using HTTP or with unix:// to use a Unix Domain Socket. When set this takes precedence over DD_AGENT_HOST and DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT. Available for versions 0.65+.

dd.trace.agent.timeout

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_AGENT_TIMEOUT
Default: 10
Timeout in seconds for network interactions with the Datadog Agent.

dd.trace.header.tags

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_HEADER_TAGS
Default: null
Example: CASE-insensitive-Header:my-tag-name,User-ID:userId
A map of header keys to tag names. Automatically apply header values as tags on traces.

dd.trace.annotations

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_ANNOTATIONS
Default: (listed here)
Example: com.some.Trace;io.other.Trace
A list of method annotations to treat as @Trace.

dd.trace.methods

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_METHODS
Default: null
Example: "package.ClassName[method1,method2,...];AnonymousClass$1[call];package.ClassName[*]"
List of class/interface and methods to trace. Similar to adding @Trace, but without changing code. Note: The wildcard method support ([*]) does not accommodate constructors, getters, setters, synthetic, toString, equals, hashcode, or finalizer method calls

dd.trace.classes.exclude

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_CLASSES_EXCLUDE
Default: null
Example: package.ClassName,package.ClassName$Nested,package.Foo*,package.other.*
A list of fully qualified classes (that may end with a wildcard to denote a prefix) which will be ignored (not modified) by the tracer. Must use the jvm internal representation for names (eg package.ClassName$Nested and not package.ClassName.Nested)

dd.trace.partial.flush.min.spans

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_PARTIAL_FLUSH_MIN_SPANS
Default: 1000
Set a number of partial spans to flush on. Useful to reduce memory overhead when dealing with heavy traffic or long running traces.

dd.trace.split-by-tags

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_SPLIT_BY_TAGS
Default: null
Example: aws.service
Used to rename the service name associated with spans to be identified with the corresponding span tag

dd.trace.db.client.split-by-instance

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_DB_CLIENT_SPLIT_BY_INSTANCE
Default: false
When set to true db spans get assigned the instance name as the service name

dd.trace.health.metrics.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_HEALTH_METRICS_ENABLED
Default: false
When set to true sends tracer health metrics

dd.trace.health.metrics.statsd.host

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_HEALTH_METRICS_STATSD_HOST
Default: Same as dd.jmxfetch.statsd.host
Statsd host to send health metrics to

dd.trace.health.metrics.statsd.port

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_HEALTH_METRICS_STATSD_PORT
Default: Same as dd.jmxfetch.statsd.port
Statsd port to send health metrics to

dd.http.client.tag.query-string

Environment Variable: DD_HTTP_CLIENT_TAG_QUERY_STRING
Default: false
When set to true query string parameters and fragment get added to web client spans

dd.http.client.error.statuses

Environment Variable: DD_HTTP_CLIENT_ERROR_STATUSES
Default: 400-499
A range of errors can be accepted. By default 4xx errors are reported as errors for http clients. This configuration overrides that. Ex. dd.http.client.error.statuses=400-403,405,410-499

dd.http.server.error.statuses

Environment Variable: DD_HTTP_SERVER_ERROR_STATUSES
Default: 500-599
A range of errors can be accepted. By default 5xx status codes are reported as errors for http servers. This configuration overrides that. Ex. dd.http.server.error.statuses=500,502-599

dd.http.server.tag.query-string

Environment Variable: DD_HTTP_SERVER_TAG_QUERY_STRING
Default: false
When set to true query string parameters and fragment get added to web server spans

dd.trace.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_ENABLED
Default: true
When false tracing agent is disabled.

dd.jmxfetch.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_ENABLED
Default: true
Enable collection of JMX metrics by Java Tracing Agent.

dd.jmxfetch.config.dir

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_CONFIG_DIR
Default: null
Example: /opt/datadog-agent/etc/conf.d
Additional configuration directory for JMX metrics collection. The Java Agent looks for jvm_direct:true in the instance section in the yaml file to change configuration.

dd.jmxfetch.config

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_CONFIG
Default: null
Example: activemq.d/conf.yaml,jmx.d/conf.yaml
Additional metrics configuration file for JMX metrics collection. The Java Agent looks for jvm_direct:true in the instance section in the yaml file to change configuration.

dd.jmxfetch.check-period

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_CHECK_PERIOD
Default: 1500
How often to send JMX metrics (in ms).

dd.jmxfetch.refresh-beans-period

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_REFRESH_BEANS_PERIOD
Default: 600
How often to refresh list of available JMX beans (in seconds).

dd.jmxfetch.statsd.host

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_STATSD_HOST
Default: Same as agent.host
Statsd host to send JMX metrics to. If you are using Unix Domain Sockets, use an argument like ‘unix://PATH_TO_UDS_SOCKET’. Example: unix:///var/datadog-agent/dsd.socket

dd.jmxfetch.statsd.port

Environment Variable: DD_JMXFETCH_STATSD_PORT
Default: 8125
StatsD port to send JMX metrics to. If you are using Unix Domain Sockets, input 0.

dd.integration.opentracing.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_INTEGRATION_OPENTRACING_ENABLED
Default: true
By default the tracing client detects if a GlobalTracer is being loaded and dynamically registers a tracer into it. By turning this to false, this removes any tracer dependency on OpenTracing.

dd.hystrix.tags.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_HYSTRIX_TAGS_ENABLED
Default: false
By default the Hystrix group, command, and circuit state tags are not enabled. This property enables them.

dd.trace.servlet.async-timeout.error

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_SERVLET_ASYNC_TIMEOUT_ERROR
Default: true
By default, long running asynchronous requests will be marked as an error, setting this value to false allows to mark all timeouts as successful requests.

dd.trace.startup.logs

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_STARTUP_LOGS
Default: true
When false, informational startup logging is disabled. Available for versions 0.64+.

dd.trace.servlet.principal.enabled

Environment Variable: DD_TRACE_SERVLET_PRINCIPAL_ENABLED
Default: false
When true, user principal is collected. Available for versions 0.61+.

Note:

• If the same key type is set for both, the system property configuration takes priority.

• System properties can be used as JVM parameters.

• By default, JMX metrics from your application are sent to the Datadog Agent thanks to DogStatsD over port 8125. Make sure that DogStatsD is enabled for the Agent.

  • If you are running the Agent as a container, ensure that DD_DOGSTATSD_NON_LOCAL_TRAFFIC is set to true, and that port 8125 is open on the Agent container.
  • In Kubernetes, bind the DogStatsD port to a host port; in ECS, set the appropriate flags in your task definition.

Integrations

See how to disable integrations in the integrations compatibility section.

Examples

dd.service.mapping

Example with system property:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.service.mapping=postgresql:web-app-pg -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.tags

Setting a global env for spans and JMX metrics:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.env=dev -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.trace.span.tags

Example with adding project:test to every span:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.env=dev -Ddd.trace.span.tags=project:test -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.trace.jmx.tags

Setting custom.type:2 on a JMX metric:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.env=dev -Ddd.trace.span.tags=project:test -Ddd.trace.jmx.tags=custom.type:2 -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.trace.methods

Example with system property:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.env=dev -Ddd.trace.methods="hello.GreetingController[doSomeStuff,doSomeOtherStuff];hello.Randomizer[randomize]" -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.trace.db.client.split-by-instance

Example with system property:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.env=dev -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.trace.db.client.split-by-instance=TRUE -jar path/to/application.jar

DB Instance 1, webappdb, now gets its own service name that is the same as the db.instance span metadata:

DB Instance 2, secondwebappdb, now gets its own service name that is the same as the db.instance span metadata:

Similarly on the service map, you would now see one web app making calls to two different Postgres databases.

dd.http.server.tag.query-string

Example with system property:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.service=web-app -Ddd.env=dev -Ddd.http.server.tag.query-string=TRUE -jar path/to/application.jar

dd.trace.enabled

Example with system property and debug app mode:

java -javaagent:/path/to/dd-java-agent.jar -Ddd.trace.enabled=false -Ddatadog.slf4j.simpleLogger.defaultLogLevel=debug -jar path/to/application.jar

Debug app logs show that Tracing is disabled, not installing instrumentations.

dd.jmxfetch.config.dir and dd.jmxfetch.config

Example configuration:

• Either the combination of: DD_JMXFETCH_CONFIG_DIR=<DIRECTORY_PATH> + DD_JMXFETCH_CONFIG=conf.yaml
• Or directly: DD_JMXFETCH_CONFIG=<DIRECTORY_PATH>/conf.yaml

With the following content for conf.yaml:

init_config:
instances:
    - jvm_direct: true
      port: '<PORT>'
      conf:
          - include:
                bean:
                    - java.lang:type=MemoryPool,name=Metaspace
                attribute:
                    Usage.used:
                        metric_type: gauge
                        alias: sb.usage.used

Would produce the following result:

See the Java integration documentation to learn more about Java metrics collection with JMX fetch.

B3 headers extraction and injection

Datadog APM tracer supports B3 headers extraction and injection for distributed tracing.

Distributed headers injection and extraction is controlled by configuring injection/extraction styles. Currently two styles are supported:

• Datadog: Datadog
• B3: B3

Injection styles can be configured using:

• System Property: -Ddd.propagation.style.inject=Datadog,B3
• Environment Variable: DD_PROPAGATION_STYLE_INJECT=Datadog,B3

The value of the property or environment variable is a comma (or space) separated list of header styles that are enabled for injection. By default only Datadog injection style is enabled.

Extraction styles can be configured using:

• System Property: -Ddd.propagation.style.extract=Datadog,B3
• Environment Variable: DD_PROPAGATION_STYLE_EXTRACT=Datadog,B3

The value of the property or environment variable is a comma (or space) separated list of header styles that are enabled for extraction. By default only Datadog extraction style is enabled.

If multiple extraction styles are enabled extraction attempt is done on the order those styles are configured and first successful extracted value is used.

Trace reporting

To report a trace to Datadog the following happens:

• Trace completes
• Trace is pushed to an asynchronous queue of traces
  • Queue is size-bound and doesn’t grow past a set limit of 7000 traces
  • Once the size limit is reached, traces are discarded
  • A count of the total traces is captured to ensure accurate throughput
• In a separate reporting thread, the trace queue is flushed and traces are encoded via msgpack then sent to the Datadog Agent via http
• Queue flushing happens on a schedule of once per second

To see the actual code, documentation, and usage examples for any of the libraries and frameworks that Datadog supports, check the full list of auto-instrumented components for Java applications in the Integrations section.

Trace annotation

Add the dd-trace-api dependency to your project. For Maven, add this to pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.datadoghq</groupId>
    <artifactId>dd-trace-api</artifactId>
    <version>{version}</version>
</dependency>

For Gradle, add:

implementation group: 'com.datadoghq', name: 'dd-trace-api', version: {version}

Now add @Trace to methods to have them be traced when running with dd-java-agent.jar. If the Agent is not attached, this annotation has no effect on your application.

@Trace annotations have the default operation name trace.annotation, while the method traced have the resource by default.

Performance

Java APM has minimal impact on the overhead of an application:

• No collections maintained by Java APM grow unbounded in memory
• Reporting traces does not block the application thread
• Java APM loads additional classes for trace collection and library instrumentation
• If you observe the Java APM frequently adding substantially more than a 3% increase in CPU or JVM heap usage, in a way that degrades your application’s performance, contact the Support team.

Further Reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Datadog Java APM source codeGITHUB Explore your services, resources and tracesDOCUMENTATION