Effective configuration of OTel Collectors
View the actual configuration an OTel Collector agent uses, even when it's composed from multiple files.
The effective configuration is the complete and active configuration an OpenTelemetry (OTel) Collector agent uses.
If you assign a configuration set to an OTel Collector by using remote configuration, the assigned configuration set is the desired configuration that agent management sends to the collector. The effective configuration is the configuration that the collector reports after it applies local settings, runtime overrides, and remote configuration. The effective configuration can differ from the assigned configuration set.
OTel Collector agents use Open Agent Management Protocol (OpAMP) for communication. A standard OpAMP capability, ReportsEffectiveConfig, allows an agent to send its effective configuration. When OpAMP is configured, the ReportsEffectiveConfig capability is enabled by default. If an agent implements this capability, Splunk saves the configuration in its database and displays it on the Effective configuration tab.
Effective configuration contents and storage
If your OTel Collector can report its effective configuration, keep secrets that require storage protection out of the reported configuration.
The OpAMP service (OAS) and the Postgres sidecar do not encrypt reported effective configuration at rest. This includes configuration stored by OAS and copies of that configuration in local Postgres backups or write-ahead log (WAL) archives.
If your organization requires storage encryption for configuration data, enable full-disk or volume encryption in your customer-managed environment.
Use OpenTelemetry Collector mechanisms such as ${env:SECRET} or a referenced configuration fragment such as ${file:secrets.yaml} to inject secret values at runtime. For more information, see https://opentelemetry.io/docs/collector/configuration.
Configuration display
- Multiple configuration files
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If an agent sends multiple configuration files, the Effective configuration tab displays separate tabs for each file, so you can review them individually.
- Single configuration file
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If the configuration is a single, unnamed file, it appears as one block of code without additional tabs.
- No effective configuration
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If an agent does not generate an effective configuration, the Effective configuration tab is visible and the error message is displayed.
OpenTelemetry Collector configuration resources
For more details about OTel Collector configuration, refer to the OpenTelemetry documentation and search for "Collector configuration." This documentation can help you define elements like telemetry sources or exporters.