Sending Logs

All logs are received over OTLP/HTTP at http://<your-ip>:4318. Replace <your-ip> with the address of the machine running the stack (use localhost if it's the same machine).

Quick test with telemetrygen

Generate synthetic logs without touching your app — useful to confirm the pipeline works end to end:

docker run --rm \
  --network xplurdata_otel-net \
  ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/telemetrygen:latest \
  logs \
  --otlp-endpoint otel-collector:4318 \
  --otlp-http \
  --otlp-insecure \
  --duration 10s \
  --rate 100 \
  --service my-service

Within a few seconds you should see records appear in the Web UI.

Send logs from your application

Every OpenTelemetry SDK reads the same standard environment variables. Set these once and the SDK exports to your stack:

export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://<your-ip>:4318"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL="http/protobuf"
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="my-service"
export OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER="otlp"

Then wire up the SDK for your language:

Python

pip install opentelemetry-distro opentelemetry-exporter-otlp
opentelemetry-bootstrap -a install

Run your app with auto-instrumentation — logs, traces, and metrics export automatically:

opentelemetry-instrument python app.py

Node.js

npm install @opentelemetry/api \
  @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node \
  @opentelemetry/exporter-logs-otlp-http

node --require @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node/register app.js

Java

Download the OpenTelemetry Java agent and attach it at startup — zero code changes:

curl -L -o opentelemetry-javaagent.jar \
  https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation/releases/latest/download/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar

java -javaagent:./opentelemetry-javaagent.jar -jar app.jar

Go

go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log

Initialise the OTLP log exporter from the OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT env var and attach it to a log.LoggerProvider in your main().

.NET

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol

Register OpenTelemetry logging in Program.cs with .AddOtlpExporter(); it reads the standard OTEL_* environment variables.

Ruby

bundle add opentelemetry-sdk opentelemetry-exporter-otlp opentelemetry-instrumentation-all

Call OpenTelemetry::SDK.configure { |c| c.use_all } during boot; the OTLP exporter picks up the OTEL_* env vars.

PHP

composer require open-telemetry/sdk open-telemetry/exporter-otlp

Configure the OTLP log exporter pointing at OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT.

Rust

# Cargo.toml
[dependencies]
opentelemetry = "0.24"
opentelemetry-otlp = { version = "0.17", features = ["logs", "http-proto"] }
opentelemetry_sdk = { version = "0.24", features = ["logs"] }

Build an OTLP log exporter with the HTTP transport and install it as a global logger.

note

The install + run snippets above are the standard OpenTelemetry starting points. Because all SDKs honour the OTEL_* environment variables, the same endpoint configuration works for every language.