Distributed Tracing

Gate supports distributed tracing through OpenTelemetry, allowing you to track requests as they flow through your proxy infrastructure. Tracing helps identify performance bottlenecks, debug connection issues, and understand player request flows.

Enabling Tracing

Tracing is disabled by default. Enable it using the OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED environment variable:

export OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED="true"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4318"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL="http/protobuf"

gate

Trace Instrumentation

Gate automatically instruments key operations with tracing spans. The instrumentation is implemented throughout the codebase using OpenTelemetry’s Go SDK.

Instrumented Operations

Gate creates traces for the following operations:

Proxy Operations (`pkg/edition/java/proxy/proxy.go:XX`)

Proxy.Start - Proxy startup and initialization
HandleConn - New player connection handling
- Attributes: net.peer.addr, net.peer.port

Authentication (`pkg/edition/java/auth/authenticator.go:XX`)

AuthenticateJoin - Player authentication with Mojang
- Attributes: player.username, player.uuid, player.ip

Network Operations (`pkg/edition/java/netmc/connection.go:XX`)

startReadLoop - Packet reading loop
- Attributes: connection.id, connection.state
HandlePacket - Individual packet processing
- Attributes: packet.type, packet.size

Server Connections (`pkg/edition/java/proxy/server.go:XX`)

serverConnection.dial - Backend server connection
- Attributes: server.name, server.address, server.port

Trace Context Propagation

Gate uses the W3C Trace Context standard for propagation:

export OTEL_PROPAGATORS="tracecontext,baggage"

This allows traces to span across:

Gate proxy instances
Backend servers (if instrumented)
External authentication services
Custom plugins and middleware

Configuration

Basic Setup

export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="gate-proxy"
export OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED="true"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4318"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL="http/protobuf"

Advanced Configuration

# Service identification
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="gate-proxy-lobby"
export OTEL_SERVICE_VERSION="v1.2.3"

# Trace-specific endpoint (if different from metrics)
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT="http://tempo:4318"

# Trace propagation
export OTEL_PROPAGATORS="tracecontext,baggage,b3"

# Resource attributes
export OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="deployment.environment=production,cloud.region=us-east-1"

Sampling Configuration

Control trace sampling to manage volume and costs:

# Sample 10% of traces (default is 100%)
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER="parentbased_traceidratio"
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG="0.1"

Sampling options:

always_on - Sample all traces (default)
always_off - Sample no traces
traceidratio - Sample based on trace ID ratio
parentbased_always_on - Respect parent sampling decision, otherwise always sample
parentbased_traceidratio - Respect parent, otherwise sample by ratio

Backend Integration

Jaeger

Jaeger is a popular open-source distributed tracing system.

Direct to Jaeger

export OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED="true"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://jaeger:4318"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL="http/protobuf"

Via OpenTelemetry Collector

# otel-collector-config.yaml
receivers:
  otlp:
    protocols:
      http:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318

processors:
  batch:
    timeout: 10s
    send_batch_size: 1024

exporters:
  jaeger:
    endpoint: jaeger:14250
    tls:
      insecure: true

service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [jaeger]

Docker Compose with Jaeger

services:
  gate:
    image: ghcr.io/minekube/gate:latest
    environment:
      - OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=gate-proxy
      - OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED=true
      - OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://otel-collector:4318
      - OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf
    networks:
      - tracing

  otel-collector:
    image: otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest
    command: ["--config=/etc/otel-collector-config.yaml"]
    volumes:
      - ./otel-collector-config.yaml:/etc/otel-collector-config.yaml
    ports:
      - "4318:4318"
    networks:
      - tracing

  jaeger:
    image: jaegertracing/all-in-one:latest
    environment:
      - COLLECTOR_OTLP_ENABLED=true
    ports:
      - "16686:16686"  # Jaeger UI
      - "14250:14250"  # gRPC
    networks:
      - tracing

networks:
  tracing:

Access Jaeger UI at http://localhost:16686

Grafana Tempo

Tempo is Grafana’s high-scale distributed tracing backend.

Configuration

# otel-collector-config.yaml
exporters:
  otlp:
    endpoint: tempo:4317
    tls:
      insecure: true

service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [otlp]

Docker Compose with Tempo

services:
  tempo:
    image: grafana/tempo:latest
    command: ["-config.file=/etc/tempo.yaml"]
    volumes:
      - ./tempo.yaml:/etc/tempo.yaml
      - tempo-data:/tmp/tempo
    ports:
      - "3200:3200"   # Tempo
      - "4317:4317"   # OTLP gRPC
    networks:
      - tracing

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    environment:
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ENABLED=true
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ORG_ROLE=Admin
    volumes:
      - ./grafana-datasources.yml:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources/datasources.yaml
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    networks:
      - tracing

volumes:
  tempo-data:

networks:
  tracing:

Tempo Configuration

# tempo.yaml
server:
  http_listen_port: 3200

distributor:
  receivers:
    otlp:
      protocols:
        grpc:
          endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
        http:
          endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318

ingester:
  max_block_duration: 5m

compactor:
  compaction:
    block_retention: 1h

storage:
  trace:
    backend: local
    wal:
      path: /tmp/tempo/wal
    local:
      path: /tmp/tempo/blocks

Grafana Cloud

export OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED="true"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://tempo-prod-XX-prod-XX-XXXXX.grafana.net/tempo"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Basic <base64_credentials>"

Get credentials from your Grafana Cloud stack settings.

Honeycomb

export OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED="true"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://api.honeycomb.io:443"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="x-honeycomb-team=<your-api-key>"

Trace Analysis

Understanding Trace Structure

A typical player connection trace shows:

Proxy.Start (root span)
├── HandleConn
│   ├── AuthenticateJoin
│   │   └── HTTP Request to Mojang
│   └── serverConnection.dial
│       ├── TCP Connection
│       └── Handshake
└── startReadLoop
    └── HandlePacket (multiple spans)

Example Queries

Jaeger UI

Find slow connections: Filter by duration > 1s
Search by player: Use tag player.username=<name>
Error traces: Filter by tag error=true
By operation: Select operation like AuthenticateJoin

Grafana with Tempo

# Find traces by service
{service.name="gate-proxy"}

# Find slow authentication
{service.name="gate-proxy" && name="AuthenticateJoin" && duration>1s}

# Find errors
{service.name="gate-proxy" && status=error}

# By resource attribute
{deployment.environment="production" && cloud.region="us-east-1"}

Common Patterns

Slow Player Connections

Look for high duration in:

AuthenticateJoin - Mojang API slowness
serverConnection.dial - Backend server latency
HandlePacket - Packet processing issues

Connection Failures

Check for error status in:

HandleConn - Initial connection problems
AuthenticateJoin - Authentication failures
serverConnection.dial - Backend unreachable

Trace Correlation

Linking Traces to Metrics

Use exemplars to link metrics to traces in Grafana:

rate(gate_player_count[5m])

Click on a data point to see associated traces.

Linking Traces to Logs

Gate automatically includes trace context in logs when using structured logging:

{
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "player connected",
  "trace_id": "4bf92f3577b34da6a3ce929d0e0e4736",
  "span_id": "00f067aa0ba902b7"
}

Search logs by trace ID to find related log entries.

Custom Tracing

Add custom spans in your Gate plugins:

import (
    "context"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/attribute"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/trace"
)

var tracer = otel.Tracer("my-plugin")

func handlePlayerEvent(ctx context.Context, player Player) error {
    ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "HandlePlayerEvent",
        trace.WithAttributes(
            attribute.String("player.name", player.Name),
            attribute.String("player.uuid", player.UUID),
            attribute.String("event.type", "join"),
        ),
    )
    defer span.End()
    
    // Your logic here
    if err := doSomething(ctx); err != nil {
        span.RecordError(err)
        span.SetStatus(codes.Error, err.Error())
        return err
    }
    
    span.SetAttributes(
        attribute.Int("processed.count", 42),
    )
    
    return nil
}

Performance Considerations

Overhead

Tracing adds ~1-2% CPU overhead when enabled
Memory impact: ~100-200 bytes per span
Network: Traces are batched and compressed

Optimization Tips

Use sampling for high-traffic proxies:

export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG="0.1"  # 10% sampling

Batch traces in the collector:

processors:
  batch:
    timeout: 10s
    send_batch_size: 2048

Filter unnecessary spans:

processors:
  filter:
    spans:
      exclude:
        match_type: regexp
        span_names: ["^HealthCheck$"]

Troubleshooting

No Traces Appearing

Verify tracing is enabled:
echo $OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED

Test the endpoint:

curl -X POST http://localhost:4318/v1/traces \
  -H "Content-Type: application/x-protobuf"

Check Gate logs for trace export errors

Incomplete Traces

Ensure all services use the same propagation format
Verify trace context is passed through middleware
Check for trace context being lost at service boundaries

High Trace Volume

Implement sampling: OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG
Use tail-based sampling in the collector
Filter low-value spans

Next Steps

Metrics

Monitor proxy performance with metrics

Logging

Configure structured logging

​Distributed Tracing

​Enabling Tracing

​Trace Instrumentation

​Instrumented Operations

​Proxy Operations (pkg/edition/java/proxy/proxy.go:XX)

​Authentication (pkg/edition/java/auth/authenticator.go:XX)

​Network Operations (pkg/edition/java/netmc/connection.go:XX)

​Server Connections (pkg/edition/java/proxy/server.go:XX)

​Trace Context Propagation

​Configuration

​Basic Setup

​Advanced Configuration

​Sampling Configuration

​Backend Integration

​Jaeger

​Direct to Jaeger

​Via OpenTelemetry Collector

​Docker Compose with Jaeger

​Grafana Tempo

​Configuration

​Docker Compose with Tempo

​Tempo Configuration

​Grafana Cloud

​Honeycomb

​Trace Analysis

​Understanding Trace Structure

​Example Queries

​Jaeger UI

​Grafana with Tempo

​Common Patterns

​Slow Player Connections

​Connection Failures

​Trace Correlation

​Linking Traces to Metrics

​Linking Traces to Logs

​Custom Tracing

​Performance Considerations

​Overhead

​Optimization Tips

​Troubleshooting

​No Traces Appearing

​Incomplete Traces

​High Trace Volume

​Next Steps

Metrics

Logging

Distributed Tracing

Enabling Tracing

Trace Instrumentation

Instrumented Operations

Proxy Operations (`pkg/edition/java/proxy/proxy.go:XX`)

Authentication (`pkg/edition/java/auth/authenticator.go:XX`)

Network Operations (`pkg/edition/java/netmc/connection.go:XX`)

Server Connections (`pkg/edition/java/proxy/server.go:XX`)

Trace Context Propagation

Configuration

Basic Setup

Advanced Configuration

Sampling Configuration

Backend Integration

Jaeger

Direct to Jaeger

Via OpenTelemetry Collector

Docker Compose with Jaeger

Grafana Tempo

Configuration

Docker Compose with Tempo

Tempo Configuration

Grafana Cloud

Honeycomb

Trace Analysis

Understanding Trace Structure

Example Queries

Jaeger UI

Grafana with Tempo

Common Patterns

Slow Player Connections

Connection Failures

Trace Correlation

Linking Traces to Metrics

Linking Traces to Logs

Custom Tracing

Performance Considerations

Overhead

Optimization Tips

Troubleshooting

No Traces Appearing

Incomplete Traces

High Trace Volume

Next Steps