Tracing C++ Applications

Note: C++ does not provide integrations for OOTB instrumentation, but it’s used by Proxy tracing such as Envoy and Nginx. For compatibility requirements for the C++ Tracer, visit the Compatibility Requirements page.

Getting started

If you already have a Datadog account you can find step-by-step instructions in our in-app guides for either host-based or container-based set ups.

Otherwise, to begin tracing applications written in any language, first install and configure the Datadog Agent.

Compile against OpenTracing-cpp.

Installation

Datadog tracing can be enabled in one of two ways:

Compile against dd-opentracing-cpp, where the Datadog lib is compiled in and configured in code
Dynamic loading, where the Datadog OpenTracing library is loaded at runtime and configured via JSON

Compile against dd-opentracing-cpp

# Gets the latest release version number from GitHub.
get_latest_release() {
  wget -qO- "https://api.github.com/repos/$1/releases/latest" |
    grep '"tag_name":' |
    sed -E 's/.*"([^"]+)".*/\1/';
}
DD_OPENTRACING_CPP_VERSION="$(get_latest_release DataDog/dd-opentracing-cpp)"
# Download and install dd-opentracing-cpp library.
wget https://github.com/DataDog/dd-opentracing-cpp/archive/${DD_OPENTRACING_CPP_VERSION}.tar.gz -O dd-opentracing-cpp.tar.gz
mkdir -p dd-opentracing-cpp/.build
tar zxvf dd-opentracing-cpp.tar.gz -C ./dd-opentracing-cpp/ --strip-components=1
cd dd-opentracing-cpp/.build
# Download and install the correct version of opentracing-cpp, & other deps.
../scripts/install_dependencies.sh
cmake ..
make
make install

Include <datadog/opentracing.h> and create the tracer:

// tracer_example.cpp
#include <datadog/opentracing.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
  datadog::opentracing::TracerOptions tracer_options{"localhost", 8126, "compiled-in example"};
  auto tracer = datadog::opentracing::makeTracer(tracer_options);

  // Create some spans.
  {
    auto span_a = tracer->StartSpan("A");
    span_a->SetTag("tag", 123);
    auto span_b = tracer->StartSpan("B", {opentracing::ChildOf(&span_a->context())});
    span_b->SetTag("tag", "value");
  }

  tracer->Close();
  return 0;
}

Link against libdd_opentracing and libopentracing, making sure that they are both in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

g++ -std=c++14 -o tracer_example tracer_example.cpp -ldd_opentracing -lopentracing
./tracer_example

Dynamic loading

get_latest_release() {
  wget -qO- "https://api.github.com/repos/$1/releases/latest" |
    grep '"tag_name":' |
    sed -E 's/.*"([^"]+)".*/\1/';
}
DD_OPENTRACING_CPP_VERSION="$(get_latest_release DataDog/dd-opentracing-cpp)"
OPENTRACING_VERSION="$(get_latest_release opentracing/opentracing-cpp)"
# Download and install OpenTracing-cpp
wget https://github.com/opentracing/opentracing-cpp/archive/${OPENTRACING_VERSION}.tar.gz -O opentracing-cpp.tar.gz
mkdir -p opentracing-cpp/.build
tar zxvf opentracing-cpp.tar.gz -C ./opentracing-cpp/ --strip-components=1
cd opentracing-cpp/.build
cmake ..
make
make install
# Install dd-opentracing-cpp shared plugin.
wget https://github.com/DataDog/dd-opentracing-cpp/releases/download/${DD_OPENTRACING_CPP_VERSION}/linux-amd64-libdd_opentracing_plugin.so.gz
gunzip linux-amd64-libdd_opentracing_plugin.so.gz -c > /usr/local/lib/libdd_opentracing_plugin.so

Include <opentracing/dynamic_load.h> and load the tracer from libdd_opentracing_plugin.so:

// tracer_example.cpp
#include <opentracing/dynamic_load.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
  // Load the tracer library.
  std::string error_message;
  auto handle_maybe = opentracing::DynamicallyLoadTracingLibrary(
      "/usr/local/lib/libdd_opentracing_plugin.so", error_message);
  if (!handle_maybe) {
    std::cerr << "Failed to load tracer library " << error_message << "\n";
    return 1;
  }

  // Read in the tracer's configuration.
  std::string tracer_config = R"({
      "service": "dynamic-load example",
      "agent_host": "localhost",
      "agent_port": 8126
    })";

  // Construct a tracer.
  auto& tracer_factory = handle_maybe->tracer_factory();
  auto tracer_maybe = tracer_factory.MakeTracer(tracer_config.c_str(), error_message);
  if (!tracer_maybe) {
    std::cerr << "Failed to create tracer " << error_message << "\n";
    return 1;
  }
  auto& tracer = *tracer_maybe;

  // Create some spans.
  {
    auto span_a = tracer->StartSpan("A");
    span_a->SetTag("tag", 123);
    auto span_b = tracer->StartSpan("B", {opentracing::ChildOf(&span_a->context())});
    span_b->SetTag("tag", "value");
  }

  tracer->Close();
  return 0;
}

Just link against libopentracing, making sure that libopentracing.so is in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

g++ -std=c++11 -o tracer_example tracer_example.cpp -lopentracing
./tracer_example

Note: OpenTracing requires C++ 11 or higher.

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.

Set apm_non_local_traffic: true in the apm_config section of your main datadog.yaml configuration file.
See the specific setup instructions to ensure that the Agent is configured to receive traces in a containerized environment:

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.

To connect to the agent using Unix Domain Sockets, DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL can be used instead. The value should match the Agent’s value for DD_APM_RECEIVER_SOCKET.

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.

Configuration

If needed, configure the tracing library to send application performance telemetry data as you require, including setting up Unified Service Tagging. Read Library Configuration for details.