New Relic for Spring Boot

Question

Recently, we convert a tomcat/spring app to spring boot. Everything is working fine apart from new relic. Is there a way I can easily config new relic with spring boot project. I don't want to hard code the location of new relic agent jar path, then run the spring boot project with the path.

edit: Spring boot project is with maven

Answer 1

You can include NewRelic Maven dependency and use maven-dependency-plugin to unpack in into your target/classes directory, which allows Maven to include it into final Jar file. Then you have to add Premain-Class attribute into manifest file and you can use your application jar as -javaagent source. You can find details on my blog post

Answer 2

I was stuck with the same issue, here is what I figured out. I implemented the 2nd way for my applications. There are 3 ways to integrate New Relic with a Spring Boot Application-

1. Using the Java Agent provided by New Relic
2. Using New Relic's Micrometer Dependency
3. Micormeter's New Relic Dependency

1. Configuration using Java Agent Provided By New Relic

1. Download the Java Agent from this URL- https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/release-notes/agent-release-notes/java-release-notes/
2. Extract it.
3. Modify the newrelic.yml file inside the extracted folder to include your license_key: app_name:
4. Create a SpringBoot application with some REST endpoints.
5. Build the application.
6. Navigate to the root path where you have extracted the newrelic java agent.
7. Enter this command java -javagent:<path to your new relic jar>\newrelic.jar -jar <path to your application jar>\<you rapplication jar name>.jar

To view the application metrics-

1. Log in to your New Relic account.
2. Go to Explorer Tab.
3. Click on Services-APM
4. You can see the name of your application(which you had mentioned in the newrelic.yml file) listed there.
5. Click on the application name.
6. The dashboard should look something like this.

Using New Relic's Micrometer Dependency is the preferred way to do it.

2. Configuration using New Relic's Micrometer Dependency

1. Add this dependency

<dependency>
        <groupId>com.newrelic.telemetry</groupId>
        <artifactId>micrometer-registry-new-relic</artifactId>
        <version>0.7.0</version>
    </dependency>

2. Modify the MicrometerConfig.java class to add your API Key and Application name.

import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;

import org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.metrics.CompositeMeterRegistryAutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.metrics.MetricsAutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.metrics.export.simple.SimpleMetricsExportAutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfigureAfter;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfigureBefore;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnClass;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;

import com.newrelic.telemetry.Attributes;
import com.newrelic.telemetry.micrometer.NewRelicRegistry;
import com.newrelic.telemetry.micrometer.NewRelicRegistryConfig;

import java.time.Duration;
import io.micrometer.core.instrument.config.MeterFilter;
import io.micrometer.core.instrument.util.NamedThreadFactory;

@Configuration
@AutoConfigureBefore({ CompositeMeterRegistryAutoConfiguration.class, SimpleMetricsExportAutoConfiguration.class })
@AutoConfigureAfter(MetricsAutoConfiguration.class)
@ConditionalOnClass(NewRelicRegistry.class)
public class MicrometerConfig {

    @Bean
    public NewRelicRegistryConfig newRelicConfig() {
        return new NewRelicRegistryConfig() {
            @Override
            public String get(String key) {
                return null;
            }

            @Override
            public String apiKey() {
                return "your_api_key"; // for production purposes take it from config file
            }

            @Override
            public Duration step() {
                return Duration.ofSeconds(5);
            }

            @Override
            public String serviceName() {
                return "your_service_name"; // take it from config file
            }

        };
    }

    @Bean
    public NewRelicRegistry newRelicMeterRegistry(NewRelicRegistryConfig config) throws UnknownHostException {
        NewRelicRegistry newRelicRegistry = NewRelicRegistry.builder(config)
                .commonAttributes(new Attributes().put("host", InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostName())).build();
        newRelicRegistry.config().meterFilter(MeterFilter.ignoreTags("plz_ignore_me"));
        newRelicRegistry.config().meterFilter(MeterFilter.denyNameStartsWith("jvm.threads"));
        newRelicRegistry.start(new NamedThreadFactory("newrelic.micrometer.registry"));
        return newRelicRegistry;
    }
}

3. Run the application.

To view the Application metrics-

1. Log in to your New Relic account.
2. Go to Explorer Tab.
3. Click on Services-OpenTelemetry
4. You can see the name of your application(which you had mentioned in the MicrometerConfig file) listed there.
5. Click on the application name.
6. The dashboard should look something like this.

Here is the link to my original question.

Answer 3

Step by step instructions

• Extract the files from the newrelic java agent archive.
• Create a directory named newrelic in the root of your application.
• Place the newrelic.jar from the archive in the above created newrelic folder
• Place the newrelic.yml YAML config file in the above created newrelic folder.
• Update the values in newrelic.yml as below.
  • license_key: 'your license key'
  • app_name: ‘Your application name’
• Run you application by using the option javaagent
  • java -javaagent:newrelic\newrelic.jar -jar yourapplication.jar

-javaagent option needs to be before the -jar so the agent can start