DotNet APM

StackState Self-hosted v4.6.x

This page describes StackState version 4.6.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

To begin tracing applications written in any language, first make sure to have the StackState Agent installed and configured. The .NET Tracer runs in-process to instrument your applications and sends traces from your application to the StackState Agent.

DotNet APM is a StackState curated integration.

Traces installation

To enable tracing and sending it to Stackstate Trace Agent, you need to follow the below steps to get started.

To start instrumentation for your dot net application, add the Datadog.Trace NuGet package to your application.

This can be done using in number of ways:

• Using Package Manager

Install-Package Datadog.Trace -Version 1.13.2

• using net cli

dotnet add package Datadog.Trace --version 1.13.2

• reference in solution file

<PackageReference Include="Datadog.Trace" Version="1.13.2" />

In your code, you can access the global tracer through the Datadog.Trace.Tracer.Instance property to create new spans.

Configuration

There are multiple ways to configure the .NET Tracer:

• in .NET code

• setting environment variables

• editing the application’s app.config/web.config file (.NET Framework only)

To configure the Tracer in application code, create a TracerSettings from the default configuration sources. Set properties on this TracerSettings instance before passing it to a Tracer constructor. For example:

    using Datadog.Trace;

    // read default configuration sources (env vars, web.config, datadog.json)
    var settings = TracerSettings.FromDefaultSources();

    // change some settings
    settings.ServiceName = "MyService";
    settings.AgentUri = new Uri("http://localhost:8126/");

    // disable the AdoNet integration
    settings.Integrations["AdoNet"].Enabled = false;

    // create a new Tracer using these settings
    var tracer = new Tracer(settings);

    // set the global tracer
    Tracer.Instance = tracer;

Note: Settings must be set on TracerSettings before creating the Tracer. Changes made to TracerSettings properies after the Tracer is created are ignored.

To configure the Tracer using environment variables, set the variables before launching the instrumented application. For example:

    rem Set environment variables
    SET DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL=http://localhost:8126
    SET DD_SERVICE_NAME=MyService
    SET DD_ADONET_ENABLED=false

    rem Launch application
    example.exe

Note: To set environment variables for a Windows Service, use the multi-string key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\{service name}\Environment in the Windows Registry.

To configure the Tracer using an app.config or web.config file, use the <appSettings> section. For example:

    <configuration>
      <appSettings>
        <add key="DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL" value="http://localhost:8126"/>
        <add key="DD_SERVICE_NAME" value="SampleMVC4Application"/>
        <add key="DD_ADONET_ENABLED" value="false"/>
      </appSettings>
    </configuration>

Those two steps (referencing assembly, configuring endpoint) is enough for stackstate-agent to start consuming traces info.

Configuration Variables

The following tables list the supported configuration variables. Use the first name (e.g. DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL) when setting environment variables or configuration files. The second name, if present (e.g. AgentUri), indicates the name the TracerSettings property to use when changing settings in the code.

The first table below lists configuration variables available.

Setting Name	Description
DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL, AgentUri	Sets the URL endpoint where traces are sent. Overrides DD_AGENT_HOST and DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT if set. Default value is http://<DD_AGENT_HOST>:<DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT>.
DD_AGENT_HOST	Sets the host where traces are sent (the host running the Agent). Can be a hostname or an IP address. Ignored if DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL is set. Default is value localhost.
DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT	Sets the port where traces are sent (the port where the Agent is listening for connections). Ignored if DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL is set. Default value is 8126.
DD_ENV Environment	If specified, adds the env tag with the specified value to all generated spans.
DD_SERVICE_NAME ServiceName	If specified, sets the default service name. Otherwise, the .NET Tracer tries to determine service name automatically from application name (e.g. IIS application name, process entry assembly, or process name).
DD_TRACE_GLOBAL_FLAGS GlobalTags	If specified, adds all of the specified tags to all generated spans.

Automatic instrumentation (experimental)

To use experimental automatic instrumentation on Windows, install the .NET Tracer on the host using the MSI installer for Windows.

After installing the .NET Tracer, restart applications and IIS service so they can read the new environment variables.

If your application runs in IIS, tracing information will be collected immediately after the service restart.

For Dotnet Windows applications not running in IIS, set these two environment variables before starting your application to enable automatic instrumentation:

NAME	VALUE
COR_ENABLE_PROFILING	1
COR_PROFILER	{846F5F1C-F9AE-4B07-969E-05C26BC060D8}

For example, environment variables can be set in the cmd file used to start your application:

rem Set environment variables
SET COR_ENABLE_PROFILING=1
SET COR_PROFILER={846F5F1C-F9AE-4B07-969E-05C26BC060D8}

rem Start application
example.exe

To set environment variables for a Windows Service, use the multi-string key

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\{service name}\Environment in the Windows Registry.

Note: The .NET runtime tries to load a profiler into any .NET process that is started with these environment variables. You should limit instrumentation only to the applications that need to be traced. We do not recommend setting these environment variables globally as this causes all .NET processes on the host to load the profiler.

If host has datadog so-called automatic instrumentation installed, following settings can be used.

Setting Name	Description
DD_TRACE_ENABLED TraceEnabled	Enables or disables all automatic instrumentation. Setting the environment variable to false completely disables the CLR profiler. For other configuration methods, the CLR profiler is still loaded, but traces will not be generated. Valid values are: true (default) or false.
DD_TRACE_DEBUG	Enables or disables debug logs in the Tracer. Valid values are: true or false (default). Setting this as an environment variable also enabled debug logs in the CLR Profiler.
DD_TRACE_LOG_PATH	Sets the path for the CLR profiler’s log file. Default: %ProgramData%\Datadog .NET Tracer\logs\dotnet-profiler.log
DD_DISABLED_INTEGRATIONS DisabledIntegrationNames	Sets a list of integrations to disable. All other integrations remain enabled. If not set, all integrations are enabled. Supports multiple values separated with semicolons.

Frameworks supported out of the box

Framework or library	NuGet package	Integration Name
ASP.NET (including Web Forms)	built-in	AspNet
ASP.NET MVC	Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc 4.0+	AspNetMvc
ASP.NET Web API 2	Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi 5.1+	AspNetWebApi2
WCF (server)	built-in	Wcf
ADO.NET	built-in	AdoNet
HttpClient / HttpClientHandler	built-in	HttpMessageHandler
WebClient / WebRequest	built-in	WebRequest
Redis (StackExchange client)	StackExchange.Redis 1.0.187+	StackExchangeRedis
Redis (ServiceStack client)	ServiceStack.Redis 4.0.48+	ServiceStackRedis
Elasticsearch	Elasticsearch.Net 5.3.0+	ElasticsearchNet
MongoDB	MongoDB.Driver.Core 2.1.0+	MongoDb