Receivercreator Receiver

Available in: contrib, k8s Maintainers: @dmitryax, @ChrsMark Source: opentelemetry-collector-contrib

Supported Telemetry

Overview

To use the receiver creator, you must first configure one or more observers that will discover networked endpoints that you may be interested in. The configured rules will be evaluated for each endpoint discovered. If the rule evaluates to true then the receiver for that rule will be started against the matched endpoint. If you use the receiver creator in multiple pipelines of differing telemetry types, but a given dynamically instantiated receiver doesn’t support one of the pipeline’s type, it will effectively lead to a logged no-op that won’t cause a collector service failure.

Configuration

watch_observers A list of observers previously defined to be run in the extensions section. receiver_creator will watch for endpoints generated by these observers. receivers A map of receiver names (e.g. redis/1) to a template for when and how to instantiate that receiver. receivers.<receiver_type/id>.rule Rule expression using expvar syntax. Variables available are detailed below in Rule Expressions. Note: The built-in type function introduced in v1.14.1 has been relocated to typeOf. receivers.<receiver_type/id>.config This is configuration that will be used when creating the receiver at runtime. This option can use static and dynamic configuration values. Static values are normal YAML values. However, the value can also be dynamically constructed from the discovered endpoint object. Dynamic values are surrounded by backticks (`). If a literal backtick is needed use \` to escape it. Dynamic values can be used with static values in which case they are concatenated. For example:

config:
   secure_url: https://`pod.labels["secure_host"]`

The value of secure_url will be https:// concatenated with the value of the secure_host label. This can also be used when the discovered endpoint needs to be changed dynamically. For instance, suppose the IP 1.2.3.4 is discovered without a port but the port needs to be set inside endpoint. You could do:

config:
   endpoint: '`endpoint`:8080'

If your target receiver provides an endpoint config field and you aren’t manually setting it like the above example, the observer endpoint target value will automatically be sourced. If no endpoint field is available you are required to specify any necessary fields. To develop, test or debug expvar syntax based expressions use Expr language playground. receivers.resource_attributes

resource_attributes:
  <endpoint type>:
    <attribute>: <attribute value>

This setting controls what resource attributes are set on telemetry emitted from the created receiver. These attributes can be set from values in the endpoint that was matched by the rule. These attributes vary based on the endpoint type. These defaults can be disabled by setting the attribute to be removed to an empty value. Note that the values can be dynamic and processed the same as in config. Note that the backticks below are not typos—they indicate the value is set dynamically. type == "pod"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.pod.name	`name`
k8s.pod.uid	`uid`
k8s.namespace.name	`namespace`

type == "port"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.pod.name	`pod.name`
k8s.pod.uid	`pod.uid`
k8s.namespace.name	`pod.namespace`
k8s.container.name	`container_name`
container.image.name	`container_image`
container.id	`container_id`

type == "pod.container"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.pod.name	`pod.name`
k8s.pod.uid	`pod.uid`
k8s.namespace.name	`pod.namespace`
container.name	`name`
k8s.container.name	`container_name`
container.image.name	`container_image`
container.id	`container_id`

type == "container"

Resource Attribute	Default
container.name	`name`
container.image.name	`image`

type == "hostport" None type == "k8s.service"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.namespace.name	`namespace`

type == "k8s.node"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.node.name	`name`
k8s.node.uid	`uid`

type == "k8s.ingress"

Resource Attribute	Default
k8s.namespace.name	`namespace`

type == "kafka.topics" None See redis/2 in examples. receivers.<receiver_type/id>.resource_attributes

receivers:
  <receiver_type>:
    resource_attributes:
      <attribute>: <attribute string value>

Similar to the per-endpoint type resource_attributes described above but for individual receiver instances. Duplicate attribute entries (including the empty string) in this receiver-specific mapping take precedence. These attribute values also support expansion from endpoint environment content. At this time their values must be strings.

Rule Expressions

Pod

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"pod"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	name of the pod	String
namespace	namespace of the pod	String
uid	unique id of the pod	String
labels	map of labels set on the pod	Map with String key and value
annotations	map of annotations set on the pod	Map with String key and value

Port

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"port"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	container port name	String
port	port number	Integer
protocol	The transport protocol (“TCP” or “UDP”)	String
pod.name	name of the owning pod	String
pod.namespace	namespace of the pod	String
pod.uid	unique id of the pod	String
pod.labels	map of labels of the owning pod	Map with String key and value
pod.annotations	map of annotations of the owning pod	Map with String key and value

Pod Container

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"pod.container"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
container_name	container name	String
container_id	container id	String
container_image	container image	String
pod.name	name of the owning pod	String
pod.namespace	namespace of the pod	String
pod.uid	unique id of the pod	String
pod.labels	map of labels of the owning pod	Map with String key and value
pod.annotations	map of annotations of the owning pod	Map with String key and value

Host Port

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"hostport"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
process_name	Name of the process	String
command	Command line with the used to invoke the process	String
is_ipv6	true if endpoint is IPv6, otherwise false	Boolean
port	Port number	Integer
transport	The transport protocol (“TCP” or “UDP”)	String

Container

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"container"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	Primary name of the container	String
image	Name of the container image	String
port	Exposed port of the container	Integer
alternate_port	Exposed port accessed through redirection, such as a mapped port	Integer
command	The command used to invoke the process of the container	String
container_id	ID of the container	String
host	Hostname or IP of the underlying host the container is running on	String
transport	Transport protocol used by the endpoint (TCP or UDP)	String
labels	User-specified metadata labels on the container	Map with String key and value

Kubernetes Service

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"k8s.service"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	The name of the Kubernetes service	String
namespace	The namespace of the service	String
uid	The unique ID for the service	String
labels	The map of labels set on the service	Map with String key and value
annotations	The map of annotations set on the service	Map with String key and value
service_type	The type of the kubernetes service: ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, ExternalName	String
cluster_ip	The cluster IP assigned to the service	String

Kubernetes Ingress

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"k8s.ingress"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	The name of the Kubernetes ingress	String
namespace	The namespace of the ingress	String
uid	The unique ID for the ingress	String
labels	The map of labels set on the ingress	Map with String key and value
annotations	The map of annotations set on the ingress	Map with String key and value
scheme	Scheme represents whether the ingress path is accessible via HTTPS or HTTP.	String
host	Host is the FQDN that map to backends	String
path	Path that map requests to backends	String

Kubernetes Node

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"k8s.node"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String
name	The name of the Kubernetes node	String
uid	The unique ID for the node	String
hostname	The node’s hostname as reported by its Status object	String
external_ip	The node’s external IP address as reported by its Status object	String
internal_ip	The node’s internal IP address as reported by its Status object	String
external_dns	The node’s external DNS record as reported by its Status object	String
internal_dns	The node’s internal DNS record as reported by its Status object	String
annotations	A key-value map of non-identifying, user-specified node metadata	Map with String key and value
labels	A key-value map of user-specified node metadata	Map with String key and value
kubelet_endpoint_port	The node Status object’s DaemonEndpoints.KubeletEndpoint.Port value	Integer

Kafka Topics

Variable	Description	Data Type
type	`"kafka.topics"`	String
id	ID of source endpoint	String

Examples

extensions:
  # Configures the Kubernetes observer to watch for pod start and stop events.
  k8s_observer:
    observe_nodes: true
    observe_services: true
    observe_ingresses: true
  host_observer:
  kafkatopics_observer:
    brokers: ["1.2.3.4:9093"]
    protocol_version: 3.9.0
    topic_regex: "^foo_topic[0-9]$"
    topics_sync_interval: 5s

receivers:
  receiver_creator/1:
    # Name of the extensions to watch for endpoints to start and stop.
    watch_observers: [k8s_observer]
    receivers:
      prometheus_simple:
        # Configure prometheus scraping if standard prometheus annotations are set on the pod.
        rule: type == "pod" && annotations["prometheus.io/scrape"] == "true"
        config:
          metrics_path: '`"prometheus.io/path" in annotations ? annotations["prometheus.io/path"] : "/metrics"`'
          endpoint: '`endpoint`:`"prometheus.io/port" in annotations ? annotations["prometheus.io/port"] : 9090`'
        resource_attributes:
          an.attribute: a.value
          # Dynamic configuration values
          app.version: '`labels["app_version"]`'

      redis/1:
        # If this rule matches an instance of this receiver will be started.
        rule: type == "port" && port == 6379
        config:
          # Static receiver-specific config.
          password: secret
          # Dynamic configuration value.
          collection_interval: '`pod.annotations["collection_interval"]`'

      redis/2:
        # Set a resource attribute based on endpoint value.
        rule: type == "port" && port == 6379

      sqlserver:
        rule: type == "port" && pod.name matches "(?i)mssql"
        config:
          server: '`host`'
          port: '`port`'
          username: sa
          password: password

    resource_attributes:
      # Dynamic configuration values, overwriting default attributes`
      pod:
        service.name: '`labels["service_name"]`'
        app: '`labels["app"]`'
      port:
        service.name: '`pod.labels["service_name"]`'
        app: '`pod.labels["app"]`'
  receiver_creator/2:
    # Name of the extensions to watch for endpoints to start and stop.
    watch_observers: [host_observer]
    receivers:
      redis/on_host:
        # If this rule matches an instance of this receiver will be started.
        rule: type == "port" && port == 6379 && is_ipv6 == true
        resource_attributes:
          service.name: redis_on_host
  receiver_creator/3:
    watch_observers: [k8s_observer]
    receivers:
      kubeletstats:
        rule: type == "k8s.node"
        config:
          auth_type: serviceAccount
          collection_interval: 10s
          endpoint: '`endpoint`:`kubelet_endpoint_port`'
          extra_metadata_labels:
            - container.id
          metric_groups:
            - container
            - pod
            - node
      httpcheck:
        # Configure probing if standard prometheus annotations are set on the pod.
        rule: type == "k8s.service" && annotations["prometheus.io/probe"] == "true"
        config:
          targets:
          - endpoint: 'http://`endpoint`:`"prometheus.io/port" in annotations ? annotations["prometheus.io/port"] : 9090``"prometheus.io/path" in annotations ? annotations["prometheus.io/path"] : "/health"`'
            method: GET
          collection_interval: 10s
  receiver_creator/4:
    watch_observers: [k8s_observer]
    receivers:
      httpcheck:
        # Configure probing if standard prometheus annotations are set on the pod.
        rule: type == "k8s.ingress" && annotations["prometheus.io/probe"] == "true"
        config:
          targets:
          - endpoint: '`scheme`://`endpoint`:`port``"prometheus.io/path" in annotations ? annotations["prometheus.io/path"] : "/health"`'
            method: GET
          collection_interval: 10s
  receiver_creator/logs:
    watch_observers: [ k8s_observer ]
    receivers:
      file_log/busybox:
        rule: type == "pod.container" && container_name == "busybox"
        config:
          include:
            - /var/log/pods/`pod.namespace`_`pod.name`_`pod.uid`/`container_name`/*.log
          include_file_name: false
          include_file_path: true
          operators:
            - id: container-parser
              type: container
            - type: add
              field: attributes.log.template
              value: busybox
      file_log/lazybox:
        rule: type == "pod.container" && container_name == "lazybox"
        config:
          include:
            - /var/log/pods/`pod.namespace`_`pod.name`_`pod.uid`/`container_name`/*.log
          include_file_name: false
          include_file_path: true
          operators:
            - id: container-parser
              type: container
            - type: add
              field: attributes.log.template
              value: lazybox
  receiver_creator/kafka:
    watch_observers: [kafkatopics_observer]
    receivers:
      kafka:
        rule: type == "kafka.topics"
        config:
          protocol_version: 3.9.0
          topic: '`endpoint`'
          encoding: text
          brokers: ["1.2.3.4:9093"]
          initial_offset: earliest
          header_extraction:
            extract_headers: true
            headers: ["index", "source", "sourcetype", "host"]

processors:
  exampleprocessor:

exporters:
  exampleexporter:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [receiver_creator/1, receiver_creator/2, receiver_creator/3, receiver_creator/4]
      processors: [exampleprocessor]
      exporters: [exampleexporter]
    logs:
      receivers: [receiver_creator/logs, receiver_creator/kafka]
      processors: [exampleprocessor]
      exporters: [exampleexporter]
  extensions: [k8s_observer, host_observer, kafkatopics_observer]

The full list of settings exposed for this receiver are documented in config.go with detailed sample configurations in testdata/config.yaml.

Generate receiver configurations from provided Hints

Note: When hints feature is enabled if hints are present for an endpoint no receiver templates will be evaluated. Currently this feature is only supported for K8s environments and the k8sobserver. The discovery feature for K8s is enabled with the following setting:

receiver_creator/metrics:
  watch_observers: [ k8s_observer ]
  discovery:
     enabled: true
     # Define which receivers should be ignored when provided through annotations
     # ignore_receivers: []
     # default_annotations: {}
receiver_creator/logs:
  watch_observers: [ k8s_observer ]
  discovery:
    enabled: true
    # Define default annotations
    #
    # This can be used when a default behaviour is required for all discovered
    # Pods/containers without having to explicitly annotate all Pods.
    #
    # Example: Enable log collection for all discovered Pods/containers unless they are explicitly
    # annotated with `io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/enabled: "false"`.
    # (to avoid collecting Collector's own logs make sure that Collector Pods are properly annotated
    # with `io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/enabled: "false"`)
    # default_annotations:
    #   io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/enabled: "true"

See below for the supported annotations that user can define to automatically enable receivers to start collecting metrics and logs signals from the target Pods/containers.

Supported metrics annotations

Enable/disable discovery

io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics/enabled (Required. "true" or "false")

Define scraper

io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics/scraper (example: "nginx")

Define configuration

io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics/config For "endpoint" setting specifically, it sticks to urls that include "`endpoint`" as it comes from the Port endpoint which is in form of pod_ip:container_port. This is to ensure that each Pod can only generate configuration that targets itself and not others. If no endpoint is provided the Pod’s endpoint will be used (in form of pod_ip:container_port). Example:

io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics/config: |
  endpoint: "http://`endpoint`/nginx_status"
  collection_interval: "20s"
  initial_delay: "20s"
  read_buffer_size: "10"
  xyz: "abc"

Support multiple target containers

Users can target the annotation to a specific container by suffixing it with the name of the port that container exposes: io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.<container_port>/config. For example:

io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.80/config: |
  endpoint: "http://`endpoint`/nginx_status"

where 80 is the port that the target container exposes. If a Pod is annotated with both container level hints and pod level hints the container level hints have priority and the Pod level hints are used as a fallback (see detailed example below). The current implementation relies on the implementation of k8sobserver extension and specifically the pod_endpoint. The hints are evaluated per container by extracting the annotations from each Port endpoint that is emitted.

Supported logs annotations

This feature enables file_log receiver in order to collect logs from the discovered Pods.

Enable/disable discovery

io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/enabled (Required. Example: "true") By default "false".

Define configuration

The default configuration for the file_log receiver is the following:

include:
  - /var/log/pods/`pod.namespace`_`pod.name`_`pod.uid`/`container_name`/*.log
include_file_name: false
include_file_path: true
operators:
  - id: container-parser
    type: container

This default can be extended or overridden using the respective annotation: io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/config Example:

io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs/config: |
  include_file_name: true
  max_log_size: "2MiB"
  operators:
    - type: container
      id: container-parser
    - type: regex_parser
      regex: "^(?P<time>\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2} \\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}) (?P<sev>[A-Z]*) (?P<msg>.*)$"

include cannot be overridden and is fixed to discovered container’s log file path.

Support multiple target containers

Users can target the annotation to a specific container by suffixing it with the name of that container: io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.<container_name>/endpoint. For example:

io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.busybox/config: |
  max_log_size: "3MiB"
  operators:
    - type: container
      id: container-parser
    - id: some
      type: add
      field: attributes.tag
      value: hints

where busybox is the name of the target container. If a Pod is annotated with both container level hints and pod level hints the container level hints have priority and the Pod level hints are used as a fallback (see detailed example below). The current implementation relies on the implementation of k8sobserver extension and specifically the pod_endpoint. The hints are evaluated per container by extracting the annotations from each Pod Container endpoint that is emitted.

Examples

Metrics and Logs example

Collector’s configuration:

receivers:
  receiver_creator/metrics:
    watch_observers: [ k8s_observer ]
    discovery:
      enabled: true
    receivers:
  
  receiver_creator/logs:
    watch_observers: [ k8s_observer ]
    discovery:
      enabled: true
    receivers:

service:
  extensions: [ k8s_observer]
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [ receiver_creator/metrics ]
      processors: []
      exporters: [ debug ]
    logs:
      receivers: [ receiver_creator/logs ]
      processors: []
      exporters: [ debug ]

Target Pod annotated with hints:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: nginx-conf
data:
  nginx.conf: |
    user  nginx;
    worker_processes  1;
    error_log  /dev/stderr warn;
    pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;
    events {
      worker_connections  1024;
    }
    http {
      include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
      default_type  application/octet-stream;

      log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                        '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                        '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';
      access_log  /dev/stdout main;
      server {
          listen 80;
          server_name localhost;

          location /nginx_status {
              stub_status on;
          }
      }
      include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*;
    }
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: redis-deployment
  labels:
    app: redis
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: redis
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: redis
      annotations:
        # redis container port metrics hints
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.6379/enabled: "true"
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.6379/scraper: redis
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.6379/config: |
          collection_interval: "20s"
          timeout: "10s"

        # nginx container port metrics hints
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.80/enabled: "true"
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.80/scraper: nginx
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.metrics.80/config: |
          endpoint: "http://`endpoint`/nginx_status"
          collection_interval: "30s"
          timeout: "20s"

        # redis pod container logs hints
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.redis/enabled: "true"
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.redis/config: |
          max_log_size: "4MiB"
          operators:
            - type: container
              id: container-parser
            - id: some
              type: add
              field: attributes.tag
              value: logs_hints

        # nginx pod container logs hints
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.webserver/enabled: "true"
        io.opentelemetry.discovery.logs.webserver/config: |
          max_log_size: "3MiB"
    spec:
      volumes:
        - name: nginx-conf
          configMap:
            name: nginx-conf
            items:
              - key: nginx.conf
                path: nginx.conf
      containers:
        - name: webserver
          image: nginx:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80
              name: webserver
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
              readOnly: true
              subPath: nginx.conf
              name: nginx-conf
        - image: redis
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: redis
          ports:
            - name: redis
              containerPort: 6379
              protocol: TCP

Configuration

Example Configuration

receiver_creator:
receiver_creator/1:
  watch_observers:
    - mock_observer
    - mock_observer/with_name
  receivers:
    examplereceiver/1:
      rule: type == "port"
      config:
        key: value
      resource_attributes:
        one: two
    nop/1:
      rule: type == "port"
      config:
        endpoint: localhost:12345
      resource_attributes:
        two: three
  resource_attributes:
    container:
      container.key: container.value
    pod:
      pod.key: pod.value
    pod.container:
      pod.container.key: pod.container.value
    port:
      port.key: port.value
    hostport:
      hostport.key: hostport.value
    k8s.service:
      k8s.service.key: k8s.service.value
    k8s.ingress:
      k8s.ingress.key: k8s.ingress.value
    k8s.node:
      k8s.node.key: k8s.node.value

Last generated: 2026-04-13

Collector components

​Receivercreator Receiver

​Supported Telemetry

​Overview

​Configuration

​Rule Expressions

​Pod

​Port

​Pod Container

​Host Port

​Container

​Kubernetes Service

​Kubernetes Ingress

​Kubernetes Node

​Kafka Topics

​Examples

​Generate receiver configurations from provided Hints

​Supported metrics annotations

​Enable/disable discovery

​Define scraper

​Define configuration

​Support multiple target containers

​Supported logs annotations

​Enable/disable discovery

​Define configuration

​Support multiple target containers

​Examples

​Metrics and Logs example

​Configuration

​Example Configuration

Receivercreator Receiver

Supported Telemetry

Overview

Configuration

Rule Expressions

Pod

Port

Pod Container

Host Port

Container

Kubernetes Service

Kubernetes Ingress

Kubernetes Node

Kafka Topics

Examples

Generate receiver configurations from provided Hints

Supported metrics annotations

Enable/disable discovery

Define scraper

Define configuration

Support multiple target containers

Supported logs annotations

Enable/disable discovery

Define configuration

Support multiple target containers

Examples

Metrics and Logs example

Configuration

Example Configuration