Install the Node.js agent for Docker

You can use our Node.js agent to instrument Node.js applications deployed in Docker containers. This document explains how to build, configure, and deploy your Dockerized Node.js application that you've instrumented with New Relic.

If you need general help with the Node.js agent installation, see our main installation instructions.

Instrument your container

By making a few configuration changes and adding New Relic environment variables to your existing Dockerfile, you can instrument your Dockerized app with our Node.js agent.

1. Add newrelic to your package.json:

   "newrelic": "latest",

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   You can update the value latest to install a specific version, or use any of the other options provided by the package.json format. Check the Node.js agent release notes for information about past agent versions.

2. Inject the agent in your node start command to instrument your application. Your container setup may allow you to edit the ENTRYPOINT to include newrelic module first with the Node.js -r/--require flag when the node command is invoked. If your Dockerfile contains any of these start commands, you can change them this way:

   • Change node YOUR_PROGRAM.js to node -r newrelic YOUR_PROGRAM.js
   • Change ENTRYPOINT ['node', 'YOUR_PROGRAM.js'] to ENTRYPOINT ['node', '-r', 'newrelic', 'YOUR_PROGRAM.js']
   • Change CMD ['node', 'YOUR_PROGRAM.js'] to CMD ['node', '-r', 'newrelic', 'YOUR_PROGRAM.js']
   • If you have an npm script to run your program such as npm start, you can programmatically modify this script by running npm pkg set scripts.start="node -r newrelic your-program.js".
   • If you can't control how your program runs, you can load the newrelic module before any other module in your program by adding require('newrelic') to the top of your entry file.

3. Build your Docker image the way you normally do.

4. To run your Docker app with the agent enabled, add your license key and app name to your docker run command as environment variables:

   bash

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   $
   docker run -e NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY \
   >
           -e NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME="YOUR_APP_NAME" \
   >
           YOUR_IMAGE_NAME:latest

Other configuration options

In addition to setting your application name or license key, you can set other configuration options by starting your container with the -e option. You can also:

• Enable a feature flag using its environment variable (NEW_RELIC_NAME_OF_FEATURE_FLAG_ENABLED), as in this snippet below, replacing NAME_OF_FEATURE_FLAG with the capitalized name of the feature flag:

  bash

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  $
  docker run -e NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY \
  >
          -e NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME="YOUR_APP_NAME" \
  >
          -e NEW_RELIC_NAME_OF_FEATURE_FLAG_ENABLED=true \
  >
          YOUR_IMAGE_NAME:latest

• Set configuration options in your Dockerfile using ENV directives:

  ENV NEW_RELIC_NAME_OF_FEATURE_FLAG_ENABLED=true \
      NEW_RELIC_LOG=stdout
      # etc.

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