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 has been instrumented with New Relic.
Instrument your container
With just a few additions your existing Dockerfile can be used with our Node.js agent. You'll configure the agent by running your new Docker image with environment variables set.
Add
newrelic
to yourpackage.json
:"newrelic": "latest",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.Depending on how your container is setup, you can edit the
ENTRYPOINT
to includenewrelic
module first with Node.js-r/--require
flag by runningnode -r newrelic YOUR_PROGRAM.js
. If you can't control how your program runs, you can load thenewrelic
module before any other module in your program by addingrequire('newrelic')
.
Tip
If you have an npm script to run your program such as npm start
, you can programatically modify this script by running npm pkg set scripts.start="node -r newrelic your-program.js"
.
- Add the environment variable
NEW_RELIC_NO_CONFIG_FILE=true
to your Dockerfile so the agent can run without a configuration file.
Important
This environment variable is no longer required as of v7.2.0 of the Node.js agent. More information on our configuration settings and order of precedence can be found here.
Build your Docker image the way you normally do.
To run your Docker app with the agent enabled, add your and app name to your
docker run
command as environment variables:bash$docker run -e NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY \>-e NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME="YOUR_APP_NAME" \>YOUR_IMAGE_NAME:latest
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Other configuration options
Caution
Don't include your license key in your Dockerfile or Docker image. For more information, see our documentation on license key security.
In addition to setting your application name or license key, you can set other configuration options by starting your container with the -e
option. For example, to enable distributed tracing, use:
$docker run -e NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY \> -e NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME="YOUR_APP_NAME" \> -e NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true \> YOUR_IMAGE_NAME:latest
You can also set configuration options in your Dockerfile using ENV
directives:
ENV NEW_RELIC_DISTRIBUTED_TRACING_ENABLED=true \ NEW_RELIC_LOG=stdout # etc.