Trace Span

The tracespan template represents an individual span within a distributed trace.

Example config:

apiVersion: "config.istio.io/v1alpha2"
kind: instance
metadata:
  name: default
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  compiledTemplate: tracespan
  params:
    traceId: request.headers["x-b3-traceid"]
    spanId: request.headers["x-b3-spanid"] | ""
    parentSpanId: request.headers["x-b3-parentspanid"] | ""
    spanName: request.path | "/"
    startTime: request.time
    endTime: response.time
    clientSpan: (context.reporter.kind | "inbound") == "outbound"
    rewriteClientSpanId: "false"
    spanTags:
      http.method: request.method | ""
      http.status_code: response.code | 200
      http.url: request.path | ""
      request.size: request.size | 0
      response.size: response.size | 0
      source.principal: source.principal | ""
      source.version: source.labels["version"] | ""

See also: Distributed Tracing for information on tracing within Istio.

Template

TraceSpan represents an individual span within a distributed trace.

When writing the configuration, the value for the fields associated with this template can either be a literal or an expression. Please note that if the datatype of a field is not istio.policy.v1beta1.Value, then the expression’s inferred type must match the datatype of the field.

FieldTypeDescription
traceIdstring

Trace ID is the unique identifier for a trace. All spans from the same trace share the same Trace ID.

Required.

spanIdstring

Span ID is the unique identifier for a span within a trace. It is assigned when the span is created.

Optional.

parentSpanIdstring

Parent Span ID is the unique identifier for a parent span of this span instance. If this is a root span, then this field MUST be empty.

Optional.

spanNamestring

Span name is a description of the span’s operation.

For example, the name can be a qualified method name or a file name and a line number where the operation is called. A best practice is to use the same display name within an application and at the same call point. This makes it easier to correlate spans in different traces.

Required.

startTimeistio.policy.v1beta1.TimeStamp

The start time of the span.

Required.

endTimeistio.policy.v1beta1.TimeStamp

The end time of the span.

Required.

spanTagsmap<string, istio.policy.v1beta1.Value>

Span tags are a set of < key, value > pairs that provide metadata for the entire span. The values can be specified in the form of expressions.

Optional.

httpStatusCodeint64

HTTP status code used to set the span status. If unset or set to 0, the span status will be assumed to be successful.

clientSpanbool

client_span indicates the span kind. True for client spans and False or not provided for server spans. Using bool instead of enum is a temporary work around since mixer expression language does not yet support enum type.

Optional

rewriteClientSpanIdbool

rewriteclientspan_id is used to indicate whether to create a new client span id to accommodate Zipkin shared span model. Some tracing systems like Stackdriver separates a RPC into client span and server span. To solve this incompatibility, deterministically rewriting both span id of client span and parent span id of server span to the same newly generated id.

Optional

sourceNamestring

Identifies the source (client side) of this span. Should usually be set to source.workload.name.

Optional.

sourceIpistio.policy.v1beta1.IPAddress

Client IP address. Should usually be set to source.ip.

Optional.

destinationNamestring

Identifies the destination (server side) of this span. Should usually be set to destination.workload.name.

Optional.

destinationIpistio.policy.v1beta1.IPAddress

Server IP address. Should usually be set to destination.ip.

Optional.

requestSizeint64

Request body size. Should usually be set to request.size.

Optional.

requestTotalSizeint64

Total request size (headers and body). Should usually be set to request.total_size.

Optional.

responseSizeint64

Response body size. Should usually be set to response.size.

Optional.

responseTotalSizeint64

Response total size (headers and body). Should usually be set to response.total_size.

Optional.

apiProtocolstring

One of “http”, “https”, or “grpc” or any other value of the api.protocol attribute. Should usually be set to api.protocol.

Optional.