OTel for PHP

7min
In this guide, we will walk you through the process of setting up and using OpenTelemetry in PHP. You will learn how to instrument a simple PHP application to produce traces, metrics, and logs and export them to KloudMate.
Step 1: Prerequisites
OpenTelemetry requires PHP 8.0+ for automatic instrumentation. Before moving forward ensure that you have the following installed:
﻿PHP 8.0+﻿
﻿PECL﻿
﻿composer﻿
Step 2: Example Application
If you already have a PHP application and don't need to create one from scratch, you can directly jump to the Instrumentation part of this guide.
For this tutorial, we will be using a basic Slim Framework application. However, OpenTelemetry PHP is compatible with other web frameworks such as WordPress, Symfony, and Laravel as well. Feel free to adapt the instructions to your preferred framework.
Step 3: Installation
Initialize a minimal composer.json file in an empty directory.
Text
composer init \
  --no-interaction \
  --require slim/slim:"^4" \
  --require slim/psr7:"^1"
composer update

composer init \
  --no-interaction \
  --require slim/slim:"^4" \
  --require slim/psr7:"^1"
composer update
﻿
2. Create a file called index.php in that same directory and addthe following content to it:
PHP
<?php
use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface as Response;
use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface as Request;
use Slim\Factory\AppFactory;

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$app = AppFactory::create();

$app->get('/rolldice', function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    $result = random_int(1,6);
    $response->getBody()->write(strval($result));
    return $response;
});

$app->run();

<?php
use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface as Response;
use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface as Request;
use Slim\Factory\AppFactory;

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$app = AppFactory::create();

$app->get('/rolldice', function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    $result = random_int(1,6);
    $response->getBody()->write(strval($result));
    return $response;
});

$app->run();
﻿
3. Run the application using the following command:
Text
php -S localhost:8080
php -S localhost:8080
﻿
4. Open http://localhost:8080/rolldice in your web browser and ensure that the application is working.
Step 4: Instrumentation
We will use the OpenTelemetry PHP extension to automatically instrument the application.
1. Install the build tools using the following command:
Linux
MacOS
brew install gcc make autoconf
brew install gcc make autoconf
﻿

2. Build the extension with PECL
Text
[opentelemetry]
extension=opentelemetry.so
[opentelemetry]
extension=opentelemetry.so
﻿
3. Use the following command to verify that the extension is installed and enabled:
Text
php --ri opentelemetry
php --ri opentelemetry
﻿
4. Add some additional dependencies to your application that are required for the automatic instrumentation of your code:
Text
composer config allow-plugins.php-http/discovery false
composer require \
  open-telemetry/sdk \
  open-telemetry/opentelemetry-auto-slim

composer config allow-plugins.php-http/discovery false
composer require \
  open-telemetry/sdk \
  open-telemetry/opentelemetry-auto-slim
﻿
Step 5: Run the Instrumented App
1. Run the instrumented application to generate traces
Text
env OTEL_PHP_AUTOLOAD_ENABLED=true \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://otel.kloudmate.com:4318 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=”Authorization=<PRIVATE_KEY>”
    php -S localhost:8080
env OTEL_PHP_AUTOLOAD_ENABLED=true \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://otel.kloudmate.com:4318 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=”Authorization=<PRIVATE_KEY>”
    php -S localhost:8080
﻿
Text
curl localhost:8080/rolldice
curl localhost:8080/rolldice
﻿
﻿
﻿
﻿
Source URL for the example application: ﻿https://opentelemetry.io/docs/instrumentation/php/getting-started/﻿
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