6.1 Configure the Routing Connector

In this exercise, you will configure the Routing Connector in the gateway.yaml. The Routing Connector can route metrics, traces, and logs based on any attributes, we will focus exclusively on trace routing based on the deployment.environment attribute (though any span/log/metirc attribute can be used).

Exercise

Add new file exporters: The routing connector requires different targets for routing. Create two new file exporters, file/traces/route1-regular and file/traces/route2-security, to ensure data is directed correctly in the exporters section of the gateway.yaml:

  file/traces/route1-regular:                     # Exporter for regular traces
    path: "./gateway-traces-route1-regular.out"   # Path for saving trace data
    append: false                                 # Overwrite the file each time
  file/traces/route2-security:                    # Exporter for security traces
    path: "./gateway-traces-route2-security.out"  # Path for saving trace data
    append: false                                 # Overwrite the file each time

Enable Routing by adding the routing connector. In OpenTelemetry configuration files, connectors have their own dedicated section, similar to receivers and processors.

In the Gateway terminal window, edit gateway.yaml and find and uncomment the #connectors: section. Then, add the following below the connectors: section:

  routing:
    default_pipelines: [traces/route1-regular]  # Default pipeline if no rule matches
    error_mode: ignore                          # Ignore errors in routing
    table:                                      # Define routing rules
      # Routes spans to a target pipeline if the resourceSpan attribute matches the rule
      - statement: route() where attributes["deployment.environment"] == "security-applications"
        pipelines: [traces/route2-security]     # Security target pipeline

The default pipeline in the configuration file works at a Catch all. It will be the routing target for any data (spans in our case) that do not match a rule in the routing rules table, In this table you find the pipeline that is the target for any span that matches the following rule: ["deployment.environment"] == "security-applications"

With the routing configuration complete, the next step is to configure the pipelines to apply these routing rules.