OpenTelemetry Collector On Loopback, A Metric In And Out
The OpenTelemetry Collector (contrib) from the upstream release (sha256-verified) as a hardened system service on loopback: OTLP in, a Prometheus endpoint out, your whole configuration checked by the collector before it lands. The live test pushes a gauge over OTLP and reads it back from the Prometheus exporter with its labels and value. Original role, live-tested on Rocky Linux 10.
Verification
Live-testedReally deployed to a container sandbox, proven idempotent (a second run changes nothing), verified against the role’s assertions, then torn down.
Conformance
- Static validation (yamllint · ansible-lint)
Provenance
- SHA-256 checksum
- Signature (pending)
Functional
- Live-tested - applied, verified, destroyed
Last verified 2026-09-20 · podman 4.9.3 · ansible 2.21.4 · how we verify
Documentation
otel-collector
The OpenTelemetry Collector, contrib distribution, from the upstream release (sha256-verified), as a hardened system service on loopback: OTLP in, a Prometheus endpoint out, the configuration checked by the collector itself before it lands. Original role for EL 10, live-tested with podman on Rocky Linux 10.
No package, so the checksum is the whole story. EL 10 carries no
otelcol; OpenTelemetry ships a release with a checksum file beside it. The
role downloads both and has Ansible's get_url refuse the asset unless its
SHA-256 is the one in the vendor's file, then installs the binaries as
root's in /usr/local/bin, pinned by otelcol_version.
A service account, a hardened unit, a loopback listener. otelcol
is a system user with no shell that owns the data directory and nothing
else; the unit runs with NoNewPrivileges, PrivateTmp, ProtectHome and
ProtectSystem=strict. The listener is 127.0.0.1:4318 by default,
for a proxy that authenticates or a client on the same host; the live test
reads the listening sockets and expects loopback only.
Checked by the release that reads it. otelcol-contrib validate
checks config.yaml before it lands: an unknown receiver or a pipeline
naming a component that does not exist is refused. The default pipeline
is small on purpose (OTLP receivers on loopback, a Prometheus exporter
for metrics, the debug exporter for traces and logs, the health-check
extension); a real deployment replaces it whole with otelcol_config,
which is checked the same way.
Proven by a metric. The live test pushes one gauge sample over
OTLP/HTTP and reads it back from the Prometheus exporter with its
resource label (job) and point label (lane) and its value, and
sees a metric nobody wrote absent. The collector's own metrics are on
127.0.0.1:8888; every listener the live test finds is loopback. The
contrib build unpacks to 400 MB; the OTLP-only build is a third of it
but has no Prometheus exporter.
License
Commercial - IaC Bazaar EULA. (c) IaC Bazaar.
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- Variables
- Test
Related modules
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ansible-alloy
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ansible-blackbox-exporter
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ansible-jaeger
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ansible-loki
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