rippled/docs/telemetry-runbook.md

rippled Telemetry Operator Runbook

Overview

rippled supports OpenTelemetry distributed tracing to provide visibility into RPC requests, transaction processing, and consensus rounds.

Quick Start

1. Start the observability stack

docker compose -f docker/telemetry/docker-compose.yml up -d

This starts:

• OTel Collector on ports 4317 (gRPC) and 4318 (HTTP)
• Jaeger UI on http://localhost:16686
• Prometheus on http://localhost:9090
• Grafana on http://localhost:3000

2. Enable telemetry in rippled

Add to your xrpld.cfg:

[telemetry]
enabled=1
endpoint=http://localhost:4318/v1/traces

3. Build with telemetry support

conan install . --build=missing -o telemetry=True
cmake --preset default -Dtelemetry=ON
cmake --build --preset default

Configuration Reference

Option	Default	Description
enabled	0	Master switch for telemetry
endpoint	http://localhost:4318/v1/traces	OTLP/HTTP endpoint
exporter	otlp_http	Exporter type
sampling_ratio	1.0	Head-based sampling ratio (0.0–1.0)
trace_rpc	1	Enable RPC request tracing
trace_transactions	1	Enable transaction tracing
trace_consensus	1	Enable consensus tracing
trace_peer	0	Enable peer message tracing (high volume)
trace_ledger	1	Enable ledger tracing
batch_size	512	Max spans per batch export
batch_delay_ms	5000	Delay between batch exports
max_queue_size	2048	Max spans queued before dropping
use_tls	0	Use TLS for exporter connection
tls_ca_cert	(empty)	Path to CA certificate bundle

Span Reference

All spans instrumented in rippled, grouped by subsystem:

RPC Spans (Phase 2)

Span Name	Source File	Attributes	Description
rpc.request	ServerHandler.cpp:271	—	Top-level HTTP RPC request
rpc.process	ServerHandler.cpp:573	—	RPC processing (child of rpc.request)
rpc.ws_message	ServerHandler.cpp:384	—	WebSocket RPC message
rpc.command.<name>	RPCHandler.cpp:161	xrpl.rpc.command, xrpl.rpc.version, xrpl.rpc.role	Per-command span (e.g., rpc.command.server_info)

Transaction Spans (Phase 3)

Span Name	Source File	Attributes	Description
tx.process	NetworkOPs.cpp:1227	xrpl.tx.hash, xrpl.tx.local, xrpl.tx.path	Transaction submission and processing
tx.receive	PeerImp.cpp:1273	xrpl.peer.id	Transaction received from peer relay

Consensus Spans (Phase 4)

Span Name	Source File	Attributes	Description
consensus.proposal.send	RCLConsensus.cpp:177	xrpl.consensus.round	Consensus proposal broadcast
consensus.ledger_close	RCLConsensus.cpp:282	xrpl.consensus.ledger.seq, xrpl.consensus.mode	Ledger close event
consensus.accept	RCLConsensus.cpp:395	xrpl.consensus.proposers, xrpl.consensus.round_time_ms	Ledger accepted by consensus
consensus.validation.send	RCLConsensus.cpp:753	xrpl.consensus.ledger.seq, xrpl.consensus.proposing	Validation sent after accept

Prometheus Metrics (Spanmetrics)

The OTel Collector's spanmetrics connector automatically derives RED (Rate, Errors, Duration) metrics from every span. No custom metrics code is needed in rippled.

Generated Metric Names

Prometheus Metric	Type	Description
traces_span_metrics_calls_total	Counter	Total span invocations
traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_bucket	Histogram	Latency distribution buckets
traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_count	Histogram	Latency observation count
traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_sum	Histogram	Cumulative latency

Metric Labels

Every metric carries these standard labels:

Label	Source	Example
span_name	Span name	rpc.command.server_info
status_code	Span status	STATUS_CODE_UNSET, STATUS_CODE_ERROR
service_name	Resource attribute	rippled
span_kind	Span kind	SPAN_KIND_INTERNAL

Additionally, span attributes configured as dimensions in the collector become metric labels (dots → underscores):

Span Attribute	Metric Label	Applies To
xrpl.rpc.command	xrpl_rpc_command	rpc.command.* spans
xrpl.rpc.status	xrpl_rpc_status	rpc.command.* spans
xrpl.consensus.mode	xrpl_consensus_mode	consensus.ledger_close spans
xrpl.tx.local	xrpl_tx_local	tx.process spans

Histogram Buckets

Configured in otel-collector-config.yaml:

1ms, 5ms, 10ms, 25ms, 50ms, 100ms, 250ms, 500ms, 1s, 5s

Grafana Dashboards

Three dashboards are pre-provisioned in docker/telemetry/grafana/dashboards/:

RPC Performance (rippled-rpc-perf)

Panel	Type	PromQL	Labels Used
RPC Request Rate by Command	timeseries	sum by (xrpl_rpc_command) (rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name=~"rpc.command.*"}[5m]))	xrpl_rpc_command
RPC Latency p95 by Command	timeseries	histogram_quantile(0.95, sum by (le, xrpl_rpc_command) (rate(traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_bucket{span_name=~"rpc.command.*"}[5m])))	xrpl_rpc_command
RPC Error Rate	bargauge	Error spans / total spans × 100, grouped by xrpl_rpc_command	xrpl_rpc_command, status_code
RPC Latency Heatmap	heatmap	sum(increase(traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_bucket{span_name=~"rpc.command.*"}[5m])) by (le)	le (bucket boundaries)

Transaction Overview (rippled-transactions)

Panel	Type	PromQL	Labels Used
Transaction Processing Rate	timeseries	rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name="tx.process"}[5m]) and tx.receive	span_name
Transaction Processing Latency	timeseries	histogram_quantile(0.95 / 0.50, ... {span_name="tx.process"})	—
Transaction Path Distribution	piechart	sum by (xrpl_tx_local) (rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name="tx.process"}[5m]))	xrpl_tx_local
Transaction Receive vs Suppressed	timeseries	rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name="tx.receive"}[5m])	—

Consensus Health (rippled-consensus)

Panel	Type	PromQL	Labels Used
Consensus Round Duration	timeseries	histogram_quantile(0.95 / 0.50, ... {span_name="consensus.accept"})	—
Consensus Proposals Sent Rate	timeseries	rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name="consensus.proposal.send"}[5m])	—
Ledger Close Duration	timeseries	histogram_quantile(0.95, ... {span_name="consensus.ledger_close"})	—
Validation Send Rate	stat	rate(traces_span_metrics_calls_total{span_name="consensus.validation.send"}[5m])	—

Span → Metric → Dashboard Summary

Span Name	Prometheus Metric Filter	Grafana Dashboard
rpc.request	{span_name="rpc.request"}	— (available but not paneled)
rpc.process	{span_name="rpc.process"}	— (available but not paneled)
rpc.command.*	{span_name=~"rpc.command.*"}	RPC Performance (all 4 panels)
tx.process	{span_name="tx.process"}	Transaction Overview (3 panels)
tx.receive	{span_name="tx.receive"}	Transaction Overview (2 panels)
consensus.accept	{span_name="consensus.accept"}	Consensus Health (Round Duration)
consensus.proposal.send	{span_name="consensus.proposal.send"}	Consensus Health (Proposals Rate)
consensus.ledger_close	{span_name="consensus.ledger_close"}	Consensus Health (Close Duration)
consensus.validation.send	{span_name="consensus.validation.send"}	Consensus Health (Validation Rate)

Troubleshooting

No traces appearing in Jaeger

1. Check rippled logs for Telemetry starting message
2. Verify enabled=1 in the [telemetry] config section
3. Test collector connectivity: curl -v http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
4. Check collector logs: docker compose logs otel-collector

High memory usage

• Reduce sampling_ratio (e.g., 0.1 for 10% sampling)
• Reduce max_queue_size and batch_size
• Disable high-volume trace categories: trace_peer=0

Collector connection failures

• Verify endpoint URL matches collector address
• Check firewall rules for ports 4317/4318
• If using TLS, verify certificate path with tls_ca_cert

Performance Tuning

Scenario	Recommendation
Production mainnet	sampling_ratio=0.01, trace_peer=0
Testnet/devnet	sampling_ratio=1.0 (full tracing)
Debugging specific issue	sampling_ratio=1.0 temporarily
High-throughput node	Increase batch_size=1024, max_queue_size=4096

Disabling Telemetry

Set enabled=0 in config (runtime disable) or build without the flag:

cmake --preset default -Dtelemetry=OFF

When telemetry is compiled out, all trace macros expand to no-ops with zero overhead.