AppSignal Python Collector Configuration

Use collector mode to send data to AppSignal through the AppSignal Collector. Logging and distributed tracing are only supported when sending data through the AppSignal collector.

This page assumes that you have already followed the installation instructions.

Deploying a collector

You can deploy your own collector by following the instructions in the AppSignal Collector documentation.

You can also have AppSignal host a collector for you using the “Hosted Collector” page in your organization’s settings.

When the collector runs on the same host as an application that reports to it, leave host metrics disabled for the collector. The application’s AppSignal integration already reports host metrics for that host. With host metrics enabled for both, the same host is reported twice.

Configuring the collector

Set the collector_endpoint configuration option to your collector’s base URL. When using a hosted collector, copy the “Collector URL” from the “Hosted Collector” settings page.

Set the service_name option to identify this application in traces. Use a different value for each service.

__appsignal__.py

from appsignal import Appsignal

appsignal = Appsignal(
    # ... other settings ...
    collector_endpoint="https://collector.example",
    service_name="web-server",
)

AppSignal for Python now sends its traces, metrics and logs to the configured collector.

To check that AppSignal loaded these settings, run python -m appsignal diagnose --no-send-report and confirm that the Configuration section lists the expected collector_endpoint and service_name. Then send a request or run a job and confirm its trace appears in AppSignal.

The bundled agent keeps running alongside the collector. It reports the data the collector does not: host metrics, NGINX metrics, StatsD metrics and environment metadata.

Migrating to collector mode

Most configuration options have the same behavior in agent mode and collector mode.

In collector mode, some data that was sent in agent mode as a single kind of data is split between multiple data types. Some configuration options that controlled whether that data was sent and how it was filtered have changed:

Agent mode	Collector mode
filter_parameters	filter_request_payload, filter_function_parameters, filter_request_query_parameters
send_params	send_request_payload, send_function_parameters, send_request_query_parameters

When the collector mode options are not set, the agent mode option is used to derive a value for it, so an application that configured these config options for agent mode will still report the same data in collector mode.

You can set the collector mode options to report each kind of data differently, such as filtering a background job’s arguments but not a request’s payload. AppSignal logs which values to set to keep reporting the same data, and the diagnose report shows them as loaded from derived.

Parameters

Collector mode reports three kinds of parameters, each with its own filter and send option:

• The request payload: an incoming HTTP request’s parameters, such as a form body.
• The function parameters: the arguments a background job was given.
• The request query parameters: an incoming HTTP request’s parsed query string.

Read request parameters for more information on how to report parameters.