Tracing Analysis:Use Jaeger to perform tracing analysis on NGINX

Overview

If a slow response occurs in a microservice that uses NGINX as a proxy, you cannot estimate the impact of the slow response because no data is collected. In this case, you can use Tracing Analysis to trace NGINX requests for the microservice and calculate the number of page views that are affected by the slow response.

Procedure

1. Pull an image from Container Registry:

   docker pull registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/public-community/jaeger-nginx:0.1

2. Run NGINX in a Docker container:

   docker run --rm  -p 80:80 -e "GRPC_HOST=${GRPC_HOST}" -e "GRPC_AUTH=${GRPC_AUTH}" -d registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/public-community/jaeger-nginx:0.1

   Set the ${GRPC_HOST} and ${GRPC_AUTH} variables to the endpoint information of the agent that you obtain in Prerequisites.

   Example:

   docker run --rm  -p 80:80 -e "GRPC_HOST=tracing-analysis-dc-hz.aliyuncs.com:1883" -e "GRPC_AUTH=123abc@123abc_789abc@456abc}" -d jaeger-nginx:0.1

3. Go to the NGINX page by using a browser.
   Enter localhost/nginx.conf or curl "localhost/nginx.conf" in the address bar of a browser to go to the NGINX page.
4. View the trace data of NGINX.
   Log on to the Tracing Analysis console to view the trace data of the nginx-jaeger application.

Deploy and trace NGINX in a Docker container

1. Download, build, and then deploy a Dockerfile:

   wget https://arms-apm.oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/demo/nginx-jaeger-docker.tgz
   tar -xzvf nginx-jaeger-docker.tgz
   cd nginx-jaeger
   // Build the Dockerfile.
   docker build --rm --tag nginx-jaeger:0.1 .

2. Run Docker:

   docker run --rm  -p 80:80 -e "GRPC_HOST=${GRPC_HOST}" -e "GRPC_AUTH=${DRPC_AUTH}" -d jaeger-nginx:0.1

   Set the ${GRPC_HOST} and ${GRPC_AUTH} variables to the endpoint information of the agent that you obtain in Prerequisites.

   Example:

   docker run --rm  -p 80:80 -e "GRPC_HOST=tracing-analysis-dc-hz.aliyuncs.com:1883" -e "GRPC_AUTH=123abc@123abc_789abc@456abc}" -d jaeger-nginx:0.1

Deploy and trace NGINX on an ECS instance

1. Install NGINX.
   1. Download and decompress the NGINX source code:

      wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.14.2.tar.gz
      tar -xzvf nginx-1.14.2.tar.gz

   2. Compile the NGINX source code:

      cd nginx-1.14.2
      ./configure --with-compat
      make
      sudo make install

2. Install OpenTracing.
   1. Download and decompress the OpenTracing package:

      wget https://github.com/opentracing-contrib/nginx-opentracing/releases/download/v0.7.0/linux-amd64-nginx-1.14.0-ngx_http_module.so.tgz
      tar -xzvf linux-amd64-nginx-1.14.0-ngx_http_module.so.tgz

   2. Copy the .so file to the modules folder of NGINX. If the folder does not exist, create the folder:

      sudo mkdir /usr/local/nginx/modules
      sudo cp ngx_http_opentracing_module.so /usr/local/nginx/modules/ngx_http_opentracing_module.so

3. Use Jaeger to perform tracing analysis.
   1. Download Jaeger to a working directory:

      wget https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger-client-cpp/releases/download/v0.4.2/libjaegertracing_plugin.linux_amd64.so
      sudo cp /usr/local/lib/libjaegertracing_plugin.so /usr/local/lib/libjaegertracing.so

   2. Configure the /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf file:

      load_module modules/ngx_http_opentracing_module.so;
      
      events {}
      
      http {
        opentracing on;
      
        opentracing_load_tracer /usr/local/lib/libjaegertracing_plugin.so /etc/jaeger-config.json;
      
        server {
          error_log /var/log/nginx/debug.log debug;
          listen 80;
      
          location  ~ {
            opentracing_operation_name $uri;
            opentracing_trace_locations off;
            # The service that you use to navigate to the proxy. Set the value based on your business requirements. 
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8081;
            opentracing_propagate_context;
          }
        }
      }

      Note For information about the parameters, see opentracing-contrib.
   3. Set the Jaeger parameters in the /etc/jaeger-config.json file:

      {
        "service_name": "nginx",
        // Specify the sampling rate.
        "sampler": {
          "type": "const",
          "param": 1
        },
        "reporter": {
          "localAgentHostPort": "localhost:6831"
        }
      }

   4. Use one of the following methods to configure the Jaeger agent:
      • If you use a self-managed Jaeger service, download the native Jaeger agent and set the collector.host-port parameter:

        nohup ./jaeger-agent  --collector.host-port=10.100.**.**:142**   1>1.log 2>2.log &

      • If you use the Jaeger service that is managed by Alibaba Cloud, download the Tracing Analysis agent. Then, set the collector.host-port parameter to start the agent. This way, you can report data to Tracing Analysis.

        Set the <endpoint> parameter to the endpoint that you obtain in Prerequisites. Delete "/api/traces" at the end of the endpoint that is obtained in Prerequisites. For example, you can set the <endpoint> parameter to http://tracing-analysis-dc-sh.aliyuncs.com/adapt_abc123@abc123_efg123@efg123).

        // collector.host-port specifies the endpoint. The endpoint varies with the region. Example:
        nohup ./tracing-analysis-agent-linux-amd64 --collector.host-port=<endpoint>

   5. Run NGINX and access the NGINX service:

      sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx
      curl "http://localhost"

Check the result

Wait for a moment. Then, log on to the Tracing Analysis console. If monitoring data appears, the tracing is successful. For information about how to monitor NGINX, contact the DingTalk account osfriend.