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Otlpjsonfile Receiver

Status Available in: contrib Maintainers: @atoulme Source: opentelemetry-collector-contrib

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Supported Telemetry

Logs Metrics Traces

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Overview

The receiver will watch the directory and read files. If a file is updated or added, the receiver will read it in its entirety again. The data is serialized according to the OpenTelemetry Protocol File Exporter.

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Getting Started

The following settings are required:
  • include: set a glob path of files to include in data collection
Example: 
receivers:
  otlpjsonfile:
    include:
      - "/var/log/*.log"
    exclude:
      - "/var/log/example.log"

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Configuration

FieldDefaultDescription
includerequiredA list of file glob patterns that match the file paths to be read.
exclude[]A list of file glob patterns to exclude from reading. This is applied against the paths matched by include.
encodingutf-8The encoding of the file being read. See the list of supported encodings below for available options.
poll_interval200msThe duration between filesystem polls.
start_atendAt startup, where to start reading logs from the file. Options are beginning or end.
fingerprint_size1kbThe number of bytes with which to identify a file. The first bytes in the file are used as the fingerprint.
max_concurrent_files1024The maximum number of log files from which logs will be read concurrently.
max_log_size1MiBThe maximum size of a log entry to read. A log entry will be truncated if it is larger than max_log_size.
storagenoneThe ID of a storage extension to be used to store file offsets.
on_truncateignoreBehavior when a file with the same fingerprint is detected but with a smaller size (indicating a copytruncate rotation). Options are ignore, read_whole_file, or read_new. See handling copytruncate rotation.
replay_filefalseIf true, the receiver will not track file offsets and will re-read files from the beginning on every poll.
For additional configuration options, see the File Log Receiver documentation.

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Handling Copytruncate Rotation

When log files are rotated using the copytruncate strategy (where the file is copied and then truncated in place), the receiver can detect when a file has been truncated by comparing the stored offset with the current file size. The on_truncate setting controls how the receiver behaves when truncation is detected:
  • ignore (default): The receiver keeps the original offset and will not read any data until the file grows past the original offset. This prevents duplicate log ingestion when a file is rotated.
  • read_whole_file: The receiver resets the offset to 0 and reads the entire file from the beginning. Use this mode when you want to ensure no data loss, even if it means potentially re-reading some logs.
  • read_new: The receiver updates the offset to the current file size (the position after truncation). This allows reading new data that is written after the truncation without re-reading existing content.
Example configuration: 
receivers:
  otlpjsonfile:
    include:
      - /var/log/otlp/*.json
    on_truncate: read_whole_file  # Read entire file after copytruncate rotation

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Configuration

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Example Configuration

otlpjsonfile:
  include:
    - "/var/log/*.log"
  exclude:
    - "/var/log/example.log"
otlpjsonfile/all:
  include_file_name: true
  include_file_path: true
  include_file_name_resolved: true
  include_file_path_resolved: true
  start_at: "beginning"
  fingerprint_size: 32768
  max_log_size: 10000
  max_concurrent_files: 4
  encoding: "UTF-8"
  on_truncate: "ignore"
  multiline:
    line_start_pattern: "<"
    line_end_pattern: ">"
  include:
    - "/var/log/*.log"
    - "/tmp/*.log"
  exclude:
    - "/var/log/example.log"
Last generated: 2026-04-13