Forward Analytics Metrics to OpenTelemetry Collector

Overview

Follow the steps in this guide to set up an F5 NGINX Controller integration that forwards metrics to OpenTelemetry Collector.

Before You Begin

This guide assumes that you already have a working instance of any OpenTelemetry Collector.

You will also need to Create an Integration for your OpenTelemetry Collector forwarder.

Create a Forwarder

Take the following steps to create a forwarder for OpenTelemetry Collector:

  1. Open the NGINX Controller user interface and log in.
  2. Select the NGINX Controller menu icon, then select Platform.
  3. On the Platform menu, select Data Forwarders.
  4. On the Data Forwarders menu, select Create Data Forwarder.
  5. Add a name.
  6. (Optional) Add a display name.
  7. (Optional) Add a description.
  8. Select your Integration Reference from the dropdown list, or select Create New to create a new integration.
  9. In the Collector Type list, select OTLP_HTTP or OTLP_GRPC.
  10. In the Source list, select the type of data to forward: METRICS.
  11. In the Output Format list, select OTLP.
  12. The Selector field consists of the following query parameters (optional):
  • names: The list of metrics names that you want to forward.
  • excluded_names: The list of metric names that you don’t want to forward.
  • filter: The conditions to use to refine the metrics data.
  • Example usage when selecting metrics: "names=nginx.*&excluded_names=nginx.upstream.*&filter=app='myapp'"
  1. (Optional) Select Add Stream to add additional streams, as needed.
Important:

Each metric is prefixed with a common namespace – for example, “nginx-controller” – before it’s sent to OpenTelemetry Collector. This prefix is used only by OpenTelemetry Collector and is not applied to any internal NGINX Controller metrics. Refer to the metrics catalog for the full list of valid metric names.

We have tested compatability with OTLP collector v0.33.0. We will most likely support versions higher than this, assuming backwards compatability from OTLP.

See Also:
See the NGINX Controller Metrics docs for more information.

What’s Next

This documentation applies to the following versions of NGINX Controller: 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.16.1, 3.17, 3.18, 3.18.1, 3.18.2 and 3.18.3.

This documentation applies to the following versions of NGINX Controller API Management module: 3.18, 3.18.1, 3.19, 3.19.1, 3.19.2, 3.19.3, 3.19.4 and 3.19.5.

This documentation applies to the following versions of NGINX Controller App Delivery module: 3.20, 3.20.1, 3.21, 3.22, 3.22.1, 3.22.2, 3.22.3, 3.22.4, 3.22.5, 3.22.6, 3.22.7 and 3.22.8.

Last modified March 19, 2025