Configuration

Environment variables reference for the OpenTelemetry GPU Collector

The collector is configured entirely via environment variables. All variables follow the standard OpenTelemetry SDK configuration spec where applicable.

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	(required)	OTLP endpoint URL, e.g. http://localhost:4318
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS		Auth headers in key=val,key2=val2 format
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL	grpc	grpc or http/protobuf
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME	default	Service name attached to all metrics
OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES	deployment.environment=default	Resource attributes in key=val,key=val format
OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL	60000	Metric polling interval in milliseconds
OTEL_GPU_EBPF_ENABLED	false	Enable eBPF CUDA kernel tracing (Linux only)

Common configurations

Minimal - send to a local OTel Collector

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317 \
./opentelemetry-gpu-collector

Production - with service name, environment, and auth header

OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=gpu-worker \
OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES=deployment.environment=production,team=ml \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://ingest.example.com:4317 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=Authorization=Bearer\ my-token \
OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL=30000 \
./opentelemetry-gpu-collector

HTTP/protobuf instead of gRPC

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318 \
./opentelemetry-gpu-collector

Enable eBPF CUDA tracing

Requires CAP_BPF + CAP_PERFMON (or root) and NVIDIA CUDA runtime.

OTEL_GPU_EBPF_ENABLED=true \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317 \
./opentelemetry-gpu-collector

Notes

• OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL is in milliseconds per the OTel spec. For a 30-second interval, set 30000.
• deployment.environment is extracted from OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES and attached as a resource attribute. Any key-value pairs in OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES are also forwarded to the OTel SDK resource via resource.WithFromEnv().
• If OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT is not set, the collector starts but no metrics are exported. Check the logs for a warning.