AWS X-Ray supports using OpenTelemetry Java and the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry (ADOT) Collector to instrument your application and send trace data to X-Ray. The OpenTelemetry SDKs are an industry-wide standard for tracing instrumentation. They provide more instrumentations and have a larger community for support, but may not have complete feature parity with the X-Ray SDKs. See choosing between the ADOT and X-Ray SDKs for more help with choosing between the two.

If you want additional features when tracing your Java applications, please open an issue on the OpenTelemetry Java Instrumentation repository.

The AWS X-Ray SDK for Java is compatible with Java 8 and 11.

Add the AWS X-Ray SDK dependencies to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-core</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-apache-http</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-aws-sdk</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-aws-sdk-v2</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-aws-sdk-instrumentor</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-aws-sdk-v2-instrumentor</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql-mysql</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql-postgres</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-spring</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-log4j</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-slf4j</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
  <artifactId>aws-xray-recorder-sdk-metrics</artifactId>
  <version>2.18.2</version>
</dependency>

Please use these community resources for getting help. We use the GitHub issues for tracking bugs and feature requests.

• Ask a question in the AWS X-Ray Forum.
• Open a support ticket with AWS Support.
• If you think you may have found a bug, please open an issue.

If you encounter a bug with the AWS X-Ray SDK for Java we would like to hear about it. Search the existing issues and see if others are also experiencing the issue before opening a new issue. Please include the version of AWS X-Ray SDK for Java, AWS SDK for Java, JDK, and OS you’re using. Please also include repro case when appropriate.

The GitHub issues are intended for bug reports and feature requests. For help and questions with using AWS X-Ray SDK for Java please make use of the resources listed in the Getting Help section. Keeping the list of open issues lean will help us respond in a timely manner.

The developer guide provides in-depth guidance on using the AWS X-Ray service and the AWS X-Ray SDK for Java.

See awslabs/eb-java-scorekeep for a sample application that uses this SDK.

For many applications, work on a task begins with an incoming HTTP request.

There are a few different options for intercepting this incoming HTTP request.

Add the filter in Tomcat's web.xml:

  <filter>
     <filter-name>AWSXRayServletFilter</filter-name>
     <filter-class>com.amazonaws.xray.javax.servlet.AWSXRayServletFilter</filter-class>
     <init-param>
        <param-name>fixedName</param-name>
        <param-value>defaultSegmentName</param-value>
     </init-param>
  </filter>
  <filter-mapping>
     <filter-name>AWSXRayServletFilter</filter-name>
     <url-pattern>*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>

Alternatively, Spring users may add the AWSXRayServletFilter to their WebConfig:

@Configuration
public class WebConfig {

    ...

    @Bean
    public Filter TracingFilter() {
        return new AWSXRayServletFilter(new FixedSegmentNamingStrategy("defaultSegmentName"));
    }
}

The servlet filter will fail to serve incoming requests if a SegmentNamingStrategy is not supplied, either through web.xml init-params or through the constructor.

Include from the Jakarta namespace. Example: com.amazonaws.xray.javax.servlet.AWSXRayServletFilter

Directly call beginSegment and endSegment as necessary. Note: this method requires additional work to ensure that the X-Amzn-Trace-Id header is properly propogated and sufficient information about the request and response is captured with the segment.

Applications may make calls to Amazon Web Services. Included in the X-Ray SDK is an extension of the AWS SDK's RequestHandler2.

To instrument an example instance of AmazonWebServiceClient:

AmazonDynamoDBClient tracedDynamoClient = 
    new AmazonDynamoDBClient().standard().withRequestHandlers(new TracingHandler()).withRegion(Regions.US_EAST_1).build();

Applications may make downstream HTTP calls to communicate with other applications. If these downstream applications are also traced, trace context information will need to be passed so that the trace segments may be properly grouped into a single trace.

The following options are available for ensuring these downstream calls include trace context information as well as locally generate the appropriate trace subsegments.

Change the import line for your DefaultHttpClient or HttpClientBuilder to the appropriate proxy import. Continue to use the class as normal; method signatures do not change.

// Change the import
import com.amazonaws.xray.proxies.apache.http.DefaultHttpClient;
...
// Keep the invocation
HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
httpClient.execute(request);

In addition to our Postgres and MySQL patchers documented in the official docs, this SDK also includes the aws-xray-recorder-sdk-sql library. This library can instrument any JDBC data source, connection, or statement so that its queries are recorded by AWS X-Ray.

import com.amazonaws.xray.sql.TracingConnection;
import com.amazonaws.xray.sql.TracingDataSource;
import com.amazonaws.xray.sql.TracingStatement;
import java.sql.*;

// Choose the one that you'd like to trace
String sql = "SELECT * FROM MYTABLE";
DataSource dataSource = TracingDataSource.decorate(dataSource);
Connection connection = TracingConnection.decorate(connection);
Statement statement = TracingStatement.decorateStatement(statement);
PreparedStatement preparedStatement = TracingStatement.decoratePreparedStatement(preparedStatement, sql);
CallableStatement callableStatement = TracingStatement.decorateCallableStatement(callableStatement, sql);

For security reasons, the SQL query is not recorded by default. However, you can opt-in to SQL query recording by setting the AWS_XRAY_COLLECT_SQL_QUERIES environment variable or the com.amazonaws.xray.collectSqlQueries system property to true.

It may be useful to further decorate portions of an application for which performance is critical. Generating subsegments around these hot spots will help in understanding their impact on application performance. There are a few different styles available for tracing custom methods.

import com.amazonaws.xray.AWSXRayRecorder;
import com.amazonaws.xray.AWSXRayRecorderBuilder;
...
AWSXRayRecorder xrayRecorder = AWSXRayRecorderBuilder.defaultRecorder();
...
xrayRecorder.createSubsegment("getMovies" (subsegment) -> {
    doSomething();
});

Subsegment subsegment = xrayRecorder.beginSubsegment("providedMovie");
try {
    doSomething();
    throw new RuntimeException("user error");
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
    subsegment.addException(e);
    subsegment.setError(true);
} finally {
    xrayRecorder.endSubsegment();
}

Note that in the closure-based example above, exceptions are intercepted automatically.

Oversampling mitigation allows you to ignore a parent segment/subsegment's sampled flag and instead sets the subsegment's sampled flag to false. This ensures that downstream calls are not sampled and this subsegment is not emitted.

public class Handler implements RequestHandler<SQSEvent, String> {
    public Handler() {
    }

    @Override
    public String handleRequest(SQSEvent event, Context context) {
        AWSXRay.beginSubsegmentWithoutSampling("Processing Event");

        AmazonSQS sqs = AmazonSQSClientBuilder.defaultClient();

        ListQueuesResult lq_result = sqs.listQueues();
      
        System.out.println("Your SQS Queue URLs:");

        for (String url : lq_result.getQueueUrls()) {
            System.out.println(url);
        }

        AWSXRay.endSubsegment();

        return "Success";
    }
}

The code below demonstrates overriding the sampled flag based on the SQS message.

public class Handler implements RequestHandler<SQSEvent, String> {
    public Handler() {
    }

    @Override
    public String handleRequest(SQSEvent event, Context context) {

        int i = 1;

        for (SQSMessage message: event.getRecords()) {

            // Check if the message is sampled
            if (SQSMessageHelper.isSampled(message)) {
                AWSXRay.beginSubsegment("Processing Message - " + i);
            } else {
                AWSXRay.beginSubsegmentWithoutSampling("Processing Message - " + i);
            }

            i++;

            // Do your procesing work here
            System.out.println("Doing processing work");

            // End your subsegment
            AWSXRay.endSubsegment();
        }
        
        return "Success";
    }
}

As of version 2.4.0, the X-Ray SDK for Java is integrated with CloudWatch ServiceLens. This allows you to use a wide range of new observability features which connect your traces, logs, and metrics in one place.

You can automatically inject your current Trace ID into logging statements if you use the Log4J or SLF4J logging frontends. To learn more and enable this feature on your instrumented project, see the developer guide.

The X-Ray SDK can now automatically vend metrics that aggregate information about the segments your application sends as a custom CloudWatch metric. To learn more and enable this feature on your instrumented project, see the developer guide.

If you are working in an environment with a supported plugin enabled and you use CloudWatch logs, the X-Ray SDK will automatically record the log group(s) you are using in that environment in the segment document. To learn more and see which plugins are supported, see the developer guide.

Alternatively, you can manually configure a log group to be associated with your application's segment data by setting the AWS_LOG_GROUP environment variable to the name of your application's log group. Note this setting makes the assumption the log group is in the same AWS account and region as the application.

Snapshots are published for each commit to AWS Sonatype snapshots repository at https://aws.oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots

Once you check out the code from GitHub, you can build it using Maven. To disable the GPG-signing in the build, use:

./gradlew build

The AWS X-Ray SDK for Java is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. See LICENSE and NOTICE.txt for more information.