Elastic{ON} 2018: Instrumenting Node.js Apps with Elastic APM

Identifying, debugging, and fixing Node.js production performance issues is difficult. Learn about Node.js instrumentation and how Elastic APM can help. See how to improve error monitoring and how to automatically instrument incoming HTTP requests, database queries, etc.

We'll also cover more advanced topics like how to minimize instrumentation overhead, how to add valuable metadata to the collected metrics to ease debugging, and how to add custom watchers to instrument any part of your codebase.

Transcript

1. Thomas Watson Principal Software Engineer Elastic APM Node.js Agent @wa7son Instrumenting Node.js Apps
2. @wa7son Who am I? • Thomas Watson • Open Source developer at
 github.com/watson • Node.js Engineer at Elastic • Elastic APM Node.js agent • Member of the Diagnostics Working Group under the Node.js Foundation • Tweets as @wa7son
3. @wa7son Introduction to Elastic APM elastic.co/webinars/elasticsearch-apm-overview
4. @wa7son Setup & Configuration giphy.com
5. @wa7son The Elastic APM agent philosophy is simple: Convention over configuration and don’t be in the way.
6. @wa7son npm install elastic-apm-node --save
7. @wa7son Configuration Inline Config file Environment variables
8. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ serviceName: 'my-node-app' })
9. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ serviceName: 'my-node-app', secretToken: 'secret!' })
10. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ serviceName: 'my-node-app', secretToken: 'secret!', serverUrl: 'https://example.com:8200' })
11. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ serviceName: 'my-node-app', secretToken: 'secret!', serverUrl: 'https://example.com:8200', active: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' })
12. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ active: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' }) NODE_ENV=production ELASTIC_APM_SERVICE_NAME=my-node-app ELASTIC_APM_SECRET_TOKEN=secret! ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL=https://example.com:8200
13. @wa7son { "serviceName": "my-node-app", "secretToken": “secret!", "serverUrl": "https://example.com:8200" }
14. @wa7son module.exports = { serviceName: 'my-node-app', secretToken: ‘secret!', serverUrl: 'https://example.com:8200', active: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' } require('elastic-apm-node').start()
15. @wa7son ELASTIC_APM_CONFIG_FILE=/path/to/elastic-apm-node.js
16. @wa7son const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start() const agent = require('elastic-apm-node')
17. @wa7son Put the call to the “start” function at the very top of your main app file - before requiring any other modules
18. @wa7son node server.js
19. @wa7son const path = require('path') const express = require('express') const afterAll = require('after-all-results') const db = require('./lib/db') const redis = require('./lib/redis') const accounting = require('./lib/accounting') const app = express() // etc...
20. @wa7son const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start({...}) const path = require('path') const express = require('express') const afterAll = require('after-all-results') const db = require('./lib/db') const redis = require('./lib/redis') const accounting = require('./lib/accounting') const app = express() // etc...
21. @wa7son const conf = require(‘./lib/config') const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start(conf.apm) const path = require('path') const express = require('express') const afterAll = require('after-all-results') const db = require('./lib/db') const redis = require('./lib/redis') const accounting = require('./lib/accounting') const app = express() // etc...
22. @wa7son import conf from './server/config' import agent from 'elastic-apm-node' import path from 'path' import express from 'express' import afterAll from 'after-all-results' import db from './lib/db' import redis from './lib/redis' import accounting from './lib/accounting' agent.start(conf.apm) var app = express() // etc...
23. @wa7son import agent from 'elastic-apm-node/start'
24. @wa7son node -r elastic-apm-node/start server.js
25. @wa7son Data Scrubbing giphy.com
26. @wa7son filterHTTPHeaders: true
27. @wa7son Custom Filters agent.addFilter((payload) => { if (payload.context.request && payload.context.request.headers) { // redact sensitive data payload.context.request.headers['x-secret'] = '[REDACTED]' } // remember to return the modified payload return payload })
28. @wa7son
29. @wa7son
30. @wa7son Custom Spans giphy.com
31. @wa7son const data = JSON.parse(req.body)
32. @wa7son const span = agent.startSpan('Parsing JSON') const data = JSON.parse(req.body)
33. @wa7son const span = agent.startSpan('Parsing JSON') const data = JSON.parse(req.body) if (span) span.end()
34. @wa7son How to instrument non HTTP server apps giphy.com
35. @wa7son
36. @wa7son
37. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { processJob(job, cb) })
38. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { processJob(job, cb) }) const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start()
39. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { const name = 'Job ' + job.type const type = 'job' const trans = agent.startTransaction(name, type) processJob(job, cb) }) const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start()
40. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { const name = 'Job ' + job.type const type = 'job' const trans = agent.startTransaction(name, type) processJob(job, (err) => { if (err) trans.result = 'error' trans.end() cb(err) }) }) const agent = require('elastic-apm-node').start()
41. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { const name = 'Job ' + job.type const type = 'job' const trans = agent.startTransaction(name, type) processJob(job, (err) => { if (err) trans.result = 'error' trans.end() cb(err) }) })
42. @wa7son const queue = require('./queue') queue.on('job', (job, cb) => { const name = 'Job ' + job.type const type = 'job' const trans = agent.startTransaction(name, type) processJob(job, (err) => { if (err) { trans.result = 'error' agent.captureError(err) } trans.end() cb(err) }) })
43. @wa7son Tuning Elastic APM giphy.com
44. @wa7son In-memory Queue Config option Default Description flushInterval 10 How often the queue is flushed (in seconds) maxQueueSize -1 Max number of items in the queue before its flushed (unlimited: -1)
45. @wa7son
46. @wa7son
47. @wa7son Source Code Context Config option Default Description sourceLinesErrorAppFrames 5 Lines of source code to collect around in-app frames on error stack traces sourceLinesErrorLibraryFrames 5 Lines of source code to collect around library frames on error stack traces sourceLinesSpanAppFrames 0 Lines of source code to collect around in-app frames for spans sourceLinesSpanLibraryFrames 0 Lines of source code to collect around library frames for spans
48. @wa7son captureSpanStackTraces: true
49. @wa7son stackTraceLimit: 50
50. @wa7son transactionMaxSpans: Infinity
51. @wa7son transactionSampleRate: 1.0
52. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ ignoreUrls: [ '/ping', /^\/admin\//i ] })
53. @wa7son require('elastic-apm-node').start({ ignoreUserAgents: [ 'curl/', /pingdom/i ] })
54. @wa7son More information giphy.com
55. @wa7son elastic.co/guide/en/apm/get-started
56. @wa7son elastic.co/guide/en/apm/agent/nodejs
57. @wa7son Getting involved giphy.com
58. @wa7son
59. @wa7son github.com / elastic / apm-server github.com / elastic / apm-agent-nodejs
60. @wa7son AMA booth & discuss.elastic.co Q&A
61. @wa7son ❤ Thank you