Opentelemetry in Vector

[Padmashankari]

In vector, we have source 'opentelemetry' which supports otlp grpc and http.https://vector.dev/docs/reference/configuration/sources/opentelemetry/

1. send container logs to otlp port (grpc:4317 or http:4318)
2. setup otel-collector to get logs from port and send it to receiver endpoints (eg. vector)
3. use source type="opentelemetry" in vector config
   This is the process we followed.

Need: Directly send pod logs to port or socket instead writing in file system, no need to set otel-collect, get logs in vector via otel port and process it.

Current setup:

From pod side:

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_ENDPOINT: "http://:4318/v1/logs"
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL: "http"

this sending logs to 4318 port (shows logs as:

2025-04-16T15:56:45.456333Z info model Full push, new service vector/vector.vector.svc.cluster.local
2025-04-16T15:56:45.994525Z info model Full push, service accounts changed, vector.vector.svc.cluster.local
2025-04-16T15:56:53.258159Z info ads Push debounce stable[4] 1 for config ServiceEntry/vector/vector.vector.svc.cluster.local: 100.709056ms since last change, 100.708992ms since last push, full=false

From vector side:
configured vector file as

[sources.my_source_id]
type = "opentelemetry"
grpc.address = "0.0.0.0:4317"
http.address = "0.0.0.0:4318"
[sink.my_sink_id]
inputs = ["my_source_id.logs"]
type = "console"
target = "stdout"
encoding.codec = "json"

And the port 4318 is exposed as cluster-IP.

Here vector pod is running without any errors

Problem: But the source is empty while using vector top. logs are not being able to receive from vector side.

Question:

Is it possible to send logs to vector without otel-collector?
If yes, does normal proxy log format will support from vector side, which protocol grpc or http is better.

[Padmashankari]

@pront do you have any idea about this!

[pront]

Is it possible to send logs to vector without otel-collector?

Yes – you can export logs directly to Vector, without an OpenTelemetry Collector in between. Any reason you cannot use Vector directly to ingest the container logs?