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Semantic conventions for HTTP spans

Status: Experimental

This document defines semantic conventions for HTTP client and server Spans. They can be used for http and https schemes and various HTTP versions like 1.1, 2 and SPDY.

Name

HTTP spans MUST follow the overall guidelines for span names. HTTP server span names SHOULD be {http.method} {http.route} if there is a (low-cardinality) http.route available. HTTP server span names SHOULD be {http.method} if there is no (low-cardinality) http.route available. HTTP client spans have no http.route attribute since client-side instrumentation is not generally aware of the "route", and therefore HTTP client spans SHOULD use {http.method}. Instrumentation MUST NOT default to using URI path as span name, but MAY provide hooks to allow custom logic to override the default span name.

Status

Span Status MUST be left unset if HTTP status code was in the 1xx, 2xx or 3xx ranges, unless there was another error (e.g., network error receiving the response body; or 3xx codes with max redirects exceeded), in which case status MUST be set to Error.

For HTTP status codes in the 4xx range span status MUST be left unset in case of SpanKind.SERVER and MUST be set to Error in case of SpanKind.CLIENT.

For HTTP status codes in the 5xx range, as well as any other code the client failed to interpret, span status MUST be set to Error.

Don't set the span status description if the reason can be inferred from http.status_code.

Common Attributes

The common attributes listed in this section apply to both HTTP clients and servers in addition to the specific attributes listed in the HTTP client and HTTP server sections below.

Attribute Type Description Examples Requirement Level
http.status_code int HTTP response status code. 200 Conditionally Required: If and only if one was received/sent.
http.request_content_length int The size of the request payload body in bytes. This is the number of bytes transferred excluding headers and is often, but not always, present as the Content-Length header. For requests using transport encoding, this should be the compressed size. 3495 Recommended
http.response_content_length int The size of the response payload body in bytes. This is the number of bytes transferred excluding headers and is often, but not always, present as the Content-Length header. For requests using transport encoding, this should be the compressed size. 3495 Recommended
http.method string HTTP request method. GET; POST; HEAD Required
net.protocol.name string Application layer protocol used. The value SHOULD be normalized to lowercase. http; spdy Recommended: if not default (http).
net.protocol.version string Version of the application layer protocol used. See note below. [1] 1.0; 1.1; 2.0 Recommended
net.sock.family string Protocol address family which is used for communication. inet; inet6 Conditionally Required: [2]
net.sock.peer.addr string Remote socket peer address: IPv4 or IPv6 for internet protocols, path for local communication, etc. 127.0.0.1; /tmp/mysql.sock Recommended
net.sock.peer.name string Remote socket peer name. proxy.example.com Recommended: [3]
net.sock.peer.port int Remote socket peer port. 16456 Recommended: [4]
user_agent.original string Value of the HTTP User-Agent header sent by the client. CERN-LineMode/2.15 libwww/2.17b3 Recommended

[1]: net.protocol.version refers to the version of the protocol used and might be different from the protocol client's version. If the HTTP client used has a version of 0.27.2, but sends HTTP version 1.1, this attribute should be set to 1.1.

[2]: If different than inet and if any of net.sock.peer.addr or net.sock.host.addr are set. Consumers of telemetry SHOULD accept both IPv4 and IPv6 formats for the address in net.sock.peer.addr if net.sock.family is not set. This is to support instrumentations that follow previous versions of this document.

[3]: If available and different from net.peer.name and if net.sock.peer.addr is set.

[4]: If defined for the address family and if different than net.peer.port and if net.sock.peer.addr is set.

Following attributes MUST be provided at span creation time (when provided at all), so they can be considered for sampling decisions:

  • http.method

net.sock.family has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used, otherwise a custom value MAY be used.

Value Description
inet IPv4 address
inet6 IPv6 address
unix Unix domain socket path

It is recommended to also use the general socket-level attributes - net.sock.peer.addr when available, net.sock.peer.name and net.sock.peer.port when don't match net.peer.name and net.peer.port (if intermediary is detected).

HTTP request and response headers

Attribute Type Description Examples Requirement Level
http.request.header.<key> string[] HTTP request headers, <key> being the normalized HTTP Header name (lowercase, with - characters replaced by _), the value being the header values. [1] [2] http.request.header.content_type=["application/json"]; http.request.header.x_forwarded_for=["1.2.3.4", "1.2.3.5"] Opt-In
http.response.header.<key> string[] HTTP response headers, <key> being the normalized HTTP Header name (lowercase, with - characters replaced by _), the value being the header values. [1] [2] http.response.header.content_type=["application/json"]; http.response.header.my_custom_header=["abc", "def"] Opt-In

[1]: Instrumentations SHOULD require an explicit configuration of which headers are to be captured. Including all request/response headers can be a security risk - explicit configuration helps avoid leaking sensitive information.

The User-Agent header is already captured in the http.user_agent attribute. Users MAY explicitly configure instrumentations to capture them even though it is not recommended.

[2]: The attribute value MUST consist of either multiple header values as an array of strings or a single-item array containing a possibly comma-concatenated string, depending on the way the HTTP library provides access to headers.

HTTP client

This span type represents an outbound HTTP request. There are two ways this can be achieved in an instrumentation:

  1. Instrumentations SHOULD create an HTTP span for each attempt to send an HTTP request over the wire. In case the request is resent, the resend attempts MUST follow the HTTP resend spec. In this case, instrumentations SHOULD NOT (also) emit a logical encompassing HTTP client span.

  2. If for some reason it is not possible to emit a span for each send attempt (because e.g. the instrumented library does not expose hooks that would allow this), instrumentations MAY create an HTTP span for the top-most operation of the HTTP client. In this case, the http.url MUST be the originally requested URL, before any HTTP-redirects that may happen when executing the request.

For an HTTP client span, SpanKind MUST be Client.

Attribute Type Description Examples Requirement Level
http.url string Full HTTP request URL in the form scheme://host[:port]/path?query[#fragment]. Usually the fragment is not transmitted over HTTP, but if it is known, it should be included nevertheless. [1] https://www.foo.bar/search?q=OpenTelemetry#SemConv Required
http.resend_count int The ordinal number of request resending attempt (for any reason, including redirects). [2] 3 Recommended: if and only if request was retried.
net.peer.name string Host identifier of the "URI origin" HTTP request is sent to. [3] example.com Required
net.peer.port int Port identifier of the "URI origin" HTTP request is sent to. [4] 80; 8080; 443 Conditionally Required: [5]

[1]: http.url MUST NOT contain credentials passed via URL in form of https://username:[email protected]/. In such case the attribute's value should be https://www.example.com/.

[2]: The resend count SHOULD be updated each time an HTTP request gets resent by the client, regardless of what was the cause of the resending (e.g. redirection, authorization failure, 503 Server Unavailable, network issues, or any other).

[3]: Determined by using the first of the following that applies

  • Host identifier of the request target if it's sent in absolute-form
  • Host identifier of the Host header

If an HTTP client request is explicitly made to an IP address, e.g. http://x.x.x.x:8080, then net.peer.name SHOULD be the IP address x.x.x.x. A DNS lookup SHOULD NOT be used.

[4]: When request target is absolute URI, net.peer.name MUST match URI port identifier, otherwise it MUST match Host header port identifier.

[5]: If not default (80 for http scheme, 443 for https).

Following attributes MUST be provided at span creation time (when provided at all), so they can be considered for sampling decisions:

Note that in some cases host and port identifiers in the Host header might be different from the net.peer.name and net.peer.port, in this case instrumentation MAY populate Host header on http.request.header.host attribute even if it's not enabled by user.

HTTP request retries and redirects

Retries and redirects cause more than one physical HTTP request to be sent. A request is resent when an HTTP client library sends more than one HTTP request to satisfy the same API call. This may happen due to following redirects, authorization challenges, 503 Server Unavailable, network issues, or any other.

Each time an HTTP request is resent, the http.resend_count attribute SHOULD be added to each repeated span and set to the ordinal number of the request resend attempt.

See the examples for more details about:

HTTP server

To understand the attributes defined in this section, it is helpful to read the "Definitions" subsection.

HTTP server definitions

This section gives a short summary of some concepts in web server configuration and web app deployment that are relevant to tracing.

Usually, on a physical host, reachable by one or multiple IP addresses, a single HTTP listener process runs. If multiple processes are running, they must listen on distinct TCP/UDP ports so that the OS can route incoming TCP/UDP packets to the right one.

Within a single server process, there can be multiple virtual hosts. The HTTP host header (in combination with a port number) is normally used to determine to which of them to route incoming HTTP requests.

The host header value that matches some virtual host is called the virtual hosts's server name. If there are multiple aliases for the virtual host, one of them (often the first one listed in the configuration) is called the primary server name. See for example, the Apache ServerName or NGINX server_name directive or the CGI specification on SERVER_NAME (RFC 3875). In practice the HTTP host header is often ignored when just a single virtual host is configured for the IP.

Within a single virtual host, some servers support the concepts of an HTTP application (for example in Java, the Servlet JSR defines an application as "a collection of servlets, HTML pages, classes, and other resources that make up a complete application on a Web server" -- SRV.9 in JSR 53; in a deployment of a Python application to Apache, the application would be the PEP 3333 conformant callable that is configured using the WSGIScriptAlias directive of mod_wsgi).

An application can be "mounted" under an application root (also known as a context root, context prefix, or document base) which is a fixed path prefix of the URL that determines to which application a request is routed (e.g., the server could be configured to route all requests that go to an URL path starting with /webshop/ at a particular virtual host to the com.example.webshop web application).

Some servers allow to bind the same HTTP application to multiple (virtual host, application root) pairs.

TODO: Find way to trace HTTP application and application root (opentelemetry/opentelementry-specification#335)

HTTP Server semantic conventions

This span type represents an inbound HTTP request.

For an HTTP server span, SpanKind MUST be Server.

Given an inbound request for a route (e.g. "/users/:userID?") the name attribute of the span SHOULD be set to this route.

If the route cannot be determined, the name attribute MUST be set as defined in the general semantic conventions for HTTP.

Attribute Type Description Examples Requirement Level
http.route string The matched route (path template in the format used by the respective server framework). See note below [1] /users/:userID?; {controller}/{action}/{id?} Conditionally Required: If and only if it's available
http.target string The full request target as passed in a HTTP request line or equivalent. /users/12314/?q=ddds Required
http.client_ip string The IP address of the original client behind all proxies, if known (e.g. from X-Forwarded-For). [2] 83.164.160.102 Recommended
http.scheme string The URI scheme identifying the used protocol. http; https Required
net.host.name string Name of the local HTTP server that received the request. [3] localhost Required
net.host.port int Port of the local HTTP server that received the request. [4] 8080 Conditionally Required: [5]
net.sock.host.addr string Local socket address. Useful in case of a multi-IP host. 192.168.0.1 Opt-In
net.sock.host.port int Local socket port number. 35555 Conditionally Required: [6]

[1]: MUST NOT be populated when this is not supported by the HTTP server framework as the route attribute should have low-cardinality and the URI path can NOT substitute it. SHOULD include the application root if there is one.

[2]: This is not necessarily the same as net.sock.peer.addr, which would identify the network-level peer, which may be a proxy.

This attribute should be set when a source of information different from the one used for net.sock.peer.addr, is available even if that other source just confirms the same value as net.sock.peer.addr. Rationale: For net.sock.peer.addr, one typically does not know if it comes from a proxy, reverse proxy, or the actual client. Setting http.client_ip when it's the same as net.sock.peer.addr means that one is at least somewhat confident that the address is not that of the closest proxy.

[3]: Determined by using the first of the following that applies

  • The primary server name of the matched virtual host. MUST only include host identifier.
  • Host identifier of the request target if it's sent in absolute-form.
  • Host identifier of the Host header

SHOULD NOT be set if only IP address is available and capturing name would require a reverse DNS lookup.

[4]: Determined by using the first of the following that applies

  • Port identifier of the primary server host of the matched virtual host.
  • Port identifier of the request target if it's sent in absolute-form.
  • Port identifier of the Host header

[5]: If not default (80 for http scheme, 443 for https).

[6]: If defined for the address family and if different than net.host.port and if net.sock.host.addr is set. In other cases, it is still recommended to set this.

Following attributes MUST be provided at span creation time (when provided at all), so they can be considered for sampling decisions:

http.route MUST be provided at span creation time if and only if it's already available. If it becomes available after span starts, instrumentation MUST populate it anytime before span ends.

Note that in some cases host and port identifiers in the Host header might be different from the net.host.name and net.host.port, in this case instrumentation MAY populate Host header on http.request.header.host attribute even if it's not enabled by user.

Examples

HTTP client-server example

As an example, if a browser request for https://example.com:8080/webshop/articles/4?s=1 is invoked from a host with IP 192.0.2.4, we may have the following Span on the client side:

Span name: GET

Attribute name Value
http.method "GET"
http.flavor "1.1"
http.url "https://example.com:8080/webshop/articles/4?s=1"
net.peer.name example.com
net.peer.port 8080
net.sock.peer.addr "192.0.2.5"
http.status_code 200

The corresponding server Span may look like this:

Span name: GET /webshop/articles/:article_id.

Attribute name Value
http.method "GET"
http.flavor "1.1"
http.target "/webshop/articles/4?s=1"
net.host.name "example.com"
net.host.port 8080
http.scheme "https"
http.route "/webshop/articles/:article_id"
http.status_code 200
http.client_ip "192.0.2.4"
net.sock.peer.addr "192.0.2.5" (the client goes through a proxy)
http.user_agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:72.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/72.0"

HTTP client retries examples

Example of retries in the presence of a trace started by an inbound request:

request (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s1)
  |
  -- GET / - 500 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s2)
  |   |
  |   --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s3)
  |
  -- GET / - 500 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s4, http.resend_count=1)
  |   |
  |   --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s5)
  |
  -- GET / - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s6, http.resend_count=2)
      |
      --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s7)

Example of retries with no trace started upfront:

GET / - 500 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s2)

GET / - 500 (CLIENT, trace=t2, span=s1, http.resend_count=1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t2, span=s2)

GET / - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t3, span=s1, http.resend_count=2)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t3, span=s1)

HTTP client authorization retry examples

Example of retries in the presence of a trace started by an inbound request:

request (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s1)
  |
  -- GET /hello - 401 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s2)
  |   |
  |   --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s3)
  |
  -- GET /hello - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s4, http.resend_count=1)
      |
      --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s5)

Example of retries with no trace started upfront:

GET /hello - 401 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s2)

GET /hello - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t2, span=s1, http.resend_count=1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t2, span=s2)

HTTP client redirects examples

Example of redirects in the presence of a trace started by an inbound request:

request (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s1)
  |
  -- GET / - 302 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s2)
  |   |
  |   --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s3)
  |
  -- GET /hello - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s4, http.resend_count=1)
      |
      --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s5)

Example of redirects with no trace started upfront:

GET / - 302 (CLIENT, trace=t1, span=s1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t1, span=s2)

GET /hello - 200 (CLIENT, trace=t2, span=s1, http.resend_count=1)
 |
 --- server (SERVER, trace=t2, span=s2)