The appoptics-apm
module provides AppOptics instrumentation for Node.js.
It supports most commonly used databases, frameworks, and packages automatically. An API (a.k.a Custom SDK) allows anything to be instrumented. An AppOptics account is required to view traces & metrics.
This is a Linux Only package with no Mac or Windows support. When installed on Mac or Windows (for development) it will degrade gracefully.
It is compatible with Node versions 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. See node status for more.
It is dependent on solarwinds-apm-bindings binary add-on.
The SolarWinds APM Agent will first attempt to install a prebuilt binary add-on using node-pre-gyp. Prebuilt binaries are provided for various versions of Alpine, Centos, Amazon Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Only if finding an appropriate prebuilt binary fails, will the agent attempt to build the binary add-on from source using node-gyp. In such a case, the target platform should include the build toolchain.
Building with node-gyp (via node-pre-gyp) requires:
- Python (2 or 3 depending on version of npm)
- make
- A proper C/C++ compiler toolchain, like GCC
The appoptics-apm
module is available on npm and can be installed
by navigating to your app root and running:
npm install --save appoptics-apm
The agent requires a service key, obtained from the AppOptics dashboard. This is set via the APPOPTICS_SERVICE_KEY
environment variable, make
sure it is available in the environment where your application is running:
export APPOPTICS_SERVICE_KEY="api-token-here:your-service-name"
A service key is composed of an API token and the name of the service you're installing on. The AppOptics platform onboarding flow provides the full service key.
To load the agent into your application you can use one of two methods: require appoptics-apm
in your application start command (run time), or require appoptics-apm
in your entry point file before any other require()
calls (build time).
Below are simple examples:
At Start (preferred)
node -r appoptics-apm <app.js>
In Code
// must be first require
require('appoptics-apm')
const express = require('express')
const app = express()
app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello World!'))
app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Example app listening on port 3000!'))
Now restart your app and you should see data in your AppOptics dashboard in a minute or two.
appoptics-apm
should be the first file required. If, for example, you are using the esm
package to enable ES module syntax (import rather than require) and you use the following
command to invoke your program node -r esm index.js
then esm.js
is loaded first and
appoptics-apm
is unable to instrument modules. You can use it, just make sure to require
appoptics-apm
first, e.g., node -r appoptics-apm -r esm index.js
.
If you are using the custom instrumentation SDK then appoptics must be loaded in the code
so that a reference to the SDK is obtained, like const ao = require('appoptics-apm')
. It
is still be possible to use the command line node -r appoptics-apm -r esm index.js
; the
require in the code will just get a reference to the results of the command line require.
See the Configuration Guide
To upgrade an existing installation, navigate to your app root and run:
npm install --save appoptics-apm@latest
If you find a bug or would like to request an enhancement, feel free to file an issue. For all other support requests, please email technicalsupport@solarwinds.com.
Copyright (c) 2016 - 2022 SolarWinds, LLC
Released under the Apache License 2.0