5. Propagation
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5. Propagation

Propagation is needed to ensure activities originating from the same root are collected together in the same trace. The most common propagation approach is to copy a trace context from a client by sending an RPC request to a server receiving it.

For example, when a downstream HTTP call is made, its trace context is encoded as request headers and sent along with it, as shown in the following image:

   Client Span                                                Server Span
┌──────────────────┐                                       ┌──────────────────┐
│                  │                                       │                  │
│   TraceContext   │           Http Request Headers        │   TraceContext   │
│ ┌──────────────┐ │          ┌───────────────────┐        │ ┌──────────────┐ │
│ │ TraceId      │ │          │ X─B3─TraceId      │        │ │ TraceId      │ │
│ │              │ │          │                   │        │ │              │ │
│ │ ParentSpanId │ │ Extract  │ X─B3─ParentSpanId │ Inject │ │ ParentSpanId │ │
│ │              ├─┼─────────>│                   ├────────┼>│              │ │
│ │ SpanId       │ │          │ X─B3─SpanId       │        │ │ SpanId       │ │
│ │              │ │          │                   │        │ │              │ │
│ │ Sampled      │ │          │ X─B3─Sampled      │        │ │ Sampled      │ │
│ └──────────────┘ │          └───────────────────┘        │ └──────────────┘ │
│                  │                                       │                  │
└──────────────────┘                                       └──────────────────┘

The names above are from B3 Propagation, which is built-in to Brave and has implementations in many languages and frameworks.

Most users use a framework interceptor to automate propagation. The next two examples show how that might work for a client and a server.

The following example shows how client-side propagation might work:

@Autowired Tracing tracing;

// configure a function that injects a trace context into a request
injector = tracing.propagation().injector(Request.Builder::addHeader);

// before a request is sent, add the current span's context to it
injector.inject(span.context(), request);

The following example shows how server-side propagation might work:

@Autowired Tracing tracing;
@Autowired Tracer tracer;

// configure a function that extracts the trace context from a request
extractor = tracing.propagation().extractor(Request::getHeader);

// when a server receives a request, it joins or starts a new trace
span = tracer.nextSpan(extractor.extract(request));

5.1 Propagating extra fields

Sometimes you need to propagate extra fields, such as a request ID or an alternate trace context. For example, if you are in a Cloud Foundry environment, you might want to pass the request ID, as shown in the following example:

// when you initialize the builder, define the extra field you want to propagate
Tracing.newBuilder().propagationFactory(
  ExtraFieldPropagation.newFactory(B3Propagation.FACTORY, "x-vcap-request-id")
);

// later, you can tag that request ID or use it in log correlation
requestId = ExtraFieldPropagation.get("x-vcap-request-id");

You may also need to propagate a trace context that you are not using. For example, you may be in an Amazon Web Services environment but not be reporting data to X-Ray. To ensure X-Ray can co-exist correctly, pass-through its tracing header, as shown in the following example:

tracingBuilder.propagationFactory(
  ExtraFieldPropagation.newFactory(B3Propagation.FACTORY, "x-amzn-trace-id")
);

	Tip
	In Spring Cloud Sleuth all elements of the tracing builder `Tracing.newBuilder()` are defined as beans. So if you want to pass a custom `PropagationFactory`, it’s enough for you to create a bean of that type and we will set it in the `Tracing` bean.

5.1.1 Prefixed fields

If they follow a common pattern, you can also prefix fields. The following example shows how to propagate x-vcap-request-id the field as-is but send the country-code and user-id fields on the wire as x-baggage-country-code and x-baggage-user-id, respectively:

Tracing.newBuilder().propagationFactory(
  ExtraFieldPropagation.newFactoryBuilder(B3Propagation.FACTORY)
                       .addField("x-vcap-request-id")
                       .addPrefixedFields("x-baggage-", Arrays.asList("country-code", "user-id"))
                       .build()
);

Later, you can call the following code to affect the country code of the current trace context:

ExtraFieldPropagation.set("x-country-code", "FO");
String countryCode = ExtraFieldPropagation.get("x-country-code");

Alternatively, if you have a reference to a trace context, you can use it explicitly, as shown in the following example:

ExtraFieldPropagation.set(span.context(), "x-country-code", "FO");
String countryCode = ExtraFieldPropagation.get(span.context(), "x-country-code");

Important

A difference from previous versions of Sleuth is that, with Brave, you must pass the list of baggage keys. There are two properties to achieve this. With the spring.sleuth.baggage-keys, you set keys that get prefixed with baggage- for HTTP calls and baggage_ for messaging. You can also use the spring.sleuth.propagation-keys property to pass a list of prefixed keys that are whitelisted without any prefix. Notice that there’s no x- in front of the header keys.

In order to automatically set the baggage values to Slf4j’s MDC, you have to set the spring.sleuth.log.slf4j.whitelisted-mdc-keys property with a list of whitelisted baggage and propagation keys. E.g. spring.sleuth.log.slf4j.whitelisted-mdc-keys=foo will set the value of the foo baggage into MDC.

	Important
	Remember that adding entries to MDC can drastically decrease the performance of your application!

If you want to add the baggage entries as tags, to make it possible to search for spans via the baggage entries, you can set the value of spring.sleuth.propagation.tag.whitelisted-keys with a list of whitelisted baggage keys. To disable the feature you have to pass the spring.sleuth.propagation.tag.enabled=false property.

5.1.2 Extracting a Propagated Context

The TraceContext.Extractor<C> reads trace identifiers and sampling status from an incoming request or message. The carrier is usually a request object or headers.

This utility is used in standard instrumentation (such as HttpServerHandler) but can also be used for custom RPC or messaging code.

TraceContextOrSamplingFlags is usually used only with Tracer.nextSpan(extracted), unless you are sharing span IDs between a client and a server.

5.1.3 Sharing span IDs between Client and Server

A normal instrumentation pattern is to create a span representing the server side of an RPC. Extractor.extract might return a complete trace context when applied to an incoming client request. Tracer.joinSpan attempts to continue this trace, using the same span ID if supported or creating a child span if not. When the span ID is shared, the reported data includes a flag saying so.

The following image shows an example of B3 propagation:

                              ┌───────────────────┐      ┌───────────────────┐
 Incoming Headers             │   TraceContext    │      │   TraceContext    │
┌───────────────────┐(extract)│ ┌───────────────┐ │(join)│ ┌───────────────┐ │
│ X─B3-TraceId      │─────────┼─┼> TraceId      │ │──────┼─┼> TraceId      │ │
│                   │         │ │               │ │      │ │               │ │
│ X─B3-ParentSpanId │─────────┼─┼> ParentSpanId │ │──────┼─┼> ParentSpanId │ │
│                   │         │ │               │ │      │ │               │ │
│ X─B3-SpanId       │─────────┼─┼> SpanId       │ │──────┼─┼> SpanId       │ │
└───────────────────┘         │ │               │ │      │ │               │ │
                              │ │               │ │      │ │  Shared: true │ │
                              │ └───────────────┘ │      │ └───────────────┘ │
                              └───────────────────┘      └───────────────────┘

Some propagation systems forward only the parent span ID, detected when Propagation.Factory.supportsJoin() == false. In this case, a new span ID is always provisioned, and the incoming context determines the parent ID.

The following image shows an example of AWS propagation:

                              ┌───────────────────┐      ┌───────────────────┐
 x-amzn-trace-id              │   TraceContext    │      │   TraceContext    │
┌───────────────────┐(extract)│ ┌───────────────┐ │(join)│ ┌───────────────┐ │
│ Root              │─────────┼─┼> TraceId      │ │──────┼─┼> TraceId      │ │
│                   │         │ │               │ │      │ │               │ │
│ Parent            │─────────┼─┼> SpanId       │ │──────┼─┼> ParentSpanId │ │
└───────────────────┘         │ └───────────────┘ │      │ │               │ │
                              └───────────────────┘      │ │  SpanId: New  │ │
                                                         │ └───────────────┘ │
                                                         └───────────────────┘

Note: Some span reporters do not support sharing span IDs. For example, if you set Tracing.Builder.spanReporter(amazonXrayOrGoogleStackdrive), you should disable join by setting Tracing.Builder.supportsJoin(false). Doing so forces a new child span on Tracer.joinSpan().

5.1.4 Implementing Propagation

TraceContext.Extractor<C> is implemented by a Propagation.Factory plugin. Internally, this code creates the union type, TraceContextOrSamplingFlags, with one of the following: * TraceContext if trace and span IDs were present. * TraceIdContext if a trace ID was present but span IDs were not present. * SamplingFlags if no identifiers were present.

Some Propagation implementations carry extra data from the point of extraction (for example, reading incoming headers) to injection (for example, writing outgoing headers). For example, it might carry a request ID. When implementations have extra data, they handle it as follows: * If a TraceContext were extracted, add the extra data as TraceContext.extra(). * Otherwise, add it as TraceContextOrSamplingFlags.extra(), which Tracer.nextSpan handles.

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