OTEL_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE_LENGTH_LIMIT env value ignored with sdk-trace-base package v1.1.0

[svetlanabrennan]

Please answer these questions before submitting a bug report.

What version of OpenTelemetry are you using?

  "dependencies": {
    "@opentelemetry/api": "^1.0.4",
    "@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node": "^0.30.0",
    "@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-proto": "^0.29.2",
    "@opentelemetry/resources": "^1.0.1",
    "@opentelemetry/sdk-node": "^0.29.2",
    "@opentelemetry/semantic-conventions": "^1.0.1",
  }

What version of Node are you using?

v18

Please provide the code you used to setup the OpenTelemetry SDK

"use strict";

const { v4: uuidv4 } = require("uuid");
const process = require("process");
const opentelemetry = require("@opentelemetry/sdk-node");
const { getNodeAutoInstrumentations } = require("@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node");
const { Resource } = require("@opentelemetry/resources");
const { SemanticResourceAttributes } = require("@opentelemetry/semantic-conventions");
const { OTLPTraceExporter } = require("@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-proto");
const api = require("@opentelemetry/api");

const resource = new Resource({
  [SemanticResourceAttributes.SERVICE_NAME]: "OpenTelemetry-Node.JS-Example",
  [SemanticResourceAttributes.SERVICE_INSTANCE_ID]: uuidv4(),
});

const instrumentations = [getNodeAutoInstrumentations()];
const traceExporter = new OTLPTraceExporter();

const sdk = new opentelemetry.NodeSDK({
  resource,
  traceExporter,
  instrumentations,
});

sdk
  .start()
  .then(() => console.log("Tracing initialized"))
  .catch((error) => console.log("Error initializing tracing", error));

process.on("SIGTERM", () => {
  sdk
    .shutdown()
    .then(() => console.log("Tracing terminated"))
    .catch((error) => console.log("Error terminating tracing", error))
    .finally(() => process.exit(0));
});

What did you do?

I exported:

export OTEL_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE_LENGTH_LIMIT=10

What did you expect to see?

  Span {
    attributes: {
      'http.url': 'http://localhost:8080/ping',
      'http.host': 'localhost:8080',
      'net.host.name': 'localhost',
      'http.method': 'GET',
      'http.target': '/ping',
      'http.user_agent': 'curl/7.79.1',
      'http.flavor': '1.1',
      'net.transport': 'ip_tcp',
      truncate: 'AAAAAAAAAA',
      'net.host.ip': '::ffff:127.0.0.1',
      'net.host.port': 8080,
      'net.peer.ip': '::ffff:127.0.0.1',
      'net.peer.port': 49760,
      'http.status_code': 200,
      'http.status_text': 'OK',
      'http.route': '/ping'
    },
    links: [],
    events: [],
    status: { code: 1 },
    endTime: [ 1655492924, 26444923 ],
    _ended: true,
    _duration: [ 0, 14500293 ],
    name: 'GET /ping',
    _spanContext: {
      traceId: 'f720a0ec04fdd436065273eb3b008a73',
      spanId: '69959269e8c1c594',
      traceFlags: 1,
      traceState: undefined
    },
    parentSpanId: undefined,
    kind: 1,
    startTime: [ 1655492924, 11944630 ],
    resource: Resource { attributes: [Object] },
    instrumentationLibrary: { name: '@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http', version: '0.27.0' },
    _spanLimits: {
      attributeValueLengthLimit: 10,
      attributeCountLimit: 128,
      linkCountLimit: 128,
      eventCountLimit: 128
    },
    _spanProcessor: MultiSpanProcessor { _spanProcessors: [Array] },
    _attributeValueLengthLimit: 10
  }

What did you see instead?

Span {
    attributes: {
      'http.url': 'http://localhost:8080/ping',
      'http.host': 'localhost:8080',
      'net.host.name': 'localhost',
      'http.method': 'GET',
      'http.target': '/ping',
      'http.user_agent': 'curl/7.79.1',
      'http.flavor': '1.1',
      'net.transport': 'ip_tcp',
     truncate: 'AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBBBB',
      'net.host.ip': '::ffff:127.0.0.1',
      'net.host.port': 8080,
      'net.peer.ip': '::ffff:127.0.0.1',
      'net.peer.port': 49671,
      'http.status_code': 200,
      'http.status_text': 'OK',
      'http.route': '/ping'
    },
    links: [],
    events: [],
    status: { code: 1 },
    endTime: [ 1655492500, 698490926 ],
    _ended: true,
    _duration: [ 0, 15013167 ],
    name: 'GET /ping',
    _spanContext: {
      traceId: 'fc51aae0c8ed3fe2d09337c8e0435ff0',
      spanId: '49e5a1f7c580441b',
      traceFlags: 1,
      traceState: undefined
    },
    parentSpanId: undefined,
    kind: 1,
    startTime: [ 1655492500, 683477759 ],
    resource: Resource { attributes: [Object] },
    instrumentationLibrary: {
      name: '@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http',
      version: '0.27.0',
      schemaUrl: undefined
    },
    _spanLimits: {
      attributeValueLengthLimit: Infinity,
      attributeCountLimit: 128,
      linkCountLimit: 128,
      eventCountLimit: 128
    },
    _spanProcessor: MultiSpanProcessor { _spanProcessors: [Array] },
    _attributeValueLengthLimit: Infinity
  }

As you can see, the _attributeValueLengthLimitproperty in the span is still set to Infinity and truncate has a value longer than 10.

Additional context

This issue is happening with v1.1.0 in this package: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js/tree/main/packages/opentelemetry-sdk-trace-base

When I was using @opentelemetry/sdk-node": "0.28.0" and higher, the issue started happening and v28 started using @opentelemetry-sdk-trace-base v1.2.0.

@opentelemetry/sdk-node v0.27.0 was using @opentelemetry-sdk-trace-base v1.1.0 and there was no issue with attribute limit.

There was a change with attribute limits in this pr: #2678 but I haven't looked at it thoroughly to confirm it if this is where the bug is coming from.

To avoid this issue when using @opentelemetry-sdk-trace-base v1.2.0, a user has to set the limit programmatically like so:

const sdk = new opentelemetry.NodeSDK({
  resource,
  traceExporter,
  instrumentations,
  spanLimits: {
      attributeValueLengthLimit: 10
  }
});

[dyladan]

@svetlanabrennan are you working on this or just reporting it?

[svetlanabrennan]

Yes I'm working on this. Should open a pr for this soon.