Node.js agent release notesRSS

New Features

• Bumped @newrelic/native-metrics to ^5.1.0.

  Upgraded nan to ^2.14.1 to resolve 'GetContents' deprecation warning with Node 14. This version of the native metrics module is tested against Node 14 and includes a pre-built binary download backup for Node 14.

Improvements

• Added whitespace trimming of license key configuration values.

  Previously, when a license key was entered with leading or trailing whitespace, it would be used as-is and result in a validation failure. This most commonly occurred with environment variable based configuration.

• Moved to GitHub actions for CI.

• Updated PR template and added initial issue templates.

• Converted most of the collector API unit tests to use the tap API. Split larger test groupings into their own test files.

Fixes

• Added synthetics headers to transaction event intrinsics for Distributed Tracing
• Fixed stale comment documentation with regards to segment recording

New Features

• Added a configurable-length span queue to Infinite Tracing: infinite_tracing.span_events.queue_size.

  The queue length can be modified to balance the needs of keeping full traces against trade-off of memory usage and CPU overhead in a high-throughput application.

Improvements

• Updated remaining /api unit tests to use tap API.
• Updated @grpc/grpc-js to v1.0.3.

Fixes

• Fixed issue where API.instrumentLoadedModule could throw an exception when it failed.

  Error details will now be caught and logged.

• Resolved non-proxy minimist security warnings by bumping dependencies.

  These updates only impact development dependencies. Thank you to @devfreddy for the contribution.

  • Updated minimist sub-deps to resolve most related security warnings.
  • Updated tap to resolve remaining tap security warnings.
  • Updated @newrelic/proxy.

New Features

• Added support for Infinite Tracing on New Relic Edge.

  Infinite Tracing observes 100% of your distributed traces and provides visualizations for the most actionable data so you have the examples of errors and long-running traces so you can better diagnose and troubleshoot your systems.

  You configure your agent to send traces to a trace observer in New Relic Edge. You view your distributed traces through the New Relic’s UI. There is no need to install a collector on your network.

  Infinite Tracing is currently available on a sign-up basis. If you would like to participate, please contact your sales representative.

Improvements

• Added function_version to lambda metadata payload.

  This is pulled from an invocation's context.functionVersion value.

Improvements

• Added error attributes to spans.

  • The public api method noticeError() now attaches exception details to the currently executing span. Spans with error details are now highlighted red in the Distributed Tracing UI. Also, the attributes error.class and error.message are added to the span. If multiple errors are recorded for a single span, only the final error's attributes will be added to the span.
  • Added ID of the span in which an error occurred to the corresponding transaction error event.

• Added new public API methods addCustomSpanAttribute and addCustomSpanAttributes to add attributes to the currently executing span.

• Added new attributes to http outbound spans: http.statusCode and http.statusText.

• Updated W3C Trace Context "Known Issues and Workaround" notes with latest accurate consideration.

• Converted unit tests to run via tap. Removes mocha dependency.

Fixes

• Fixed route naming when hapi's pre route handlers share functions.
• Fixed child_process instrumentation so that handlers can be effectively removed when attached via .once() or manually removed via removeListener().

Improvements

• Support new http[s] get/request function signature in Node v10+

• Added the following Span attributes:

  • http.statusCode
  • http.statusText

  The above attributes will be replacing the following deprecated attributes:

  • httpResponseCode
  • response.status
  • response.statusMessage

  The deprecated attributes will be removed with the next major release of the agent.

• Updates version check to be in alignment with our stated support policy and the version constraints in package.json

• Redacts individual certificate configuration values before sending to server settings. When configured, these values will now appear like: {certificates.0: ****}.

Known issues and workarounds

• If a .NET agent is initiating distributed traces as the root service, you must update that .NET agent to version 8.24 or later before upgrading your downstream New Relic Node agents to this agent release.

Improvements

• Removed calls to OutgoingMessage.prototype._headers in favor of using public getHeaders API (thanks to @adityasabnis for bringing this to our attention).

• Removed engine upper-bound to enable easier experimentation of newer Node versions with the agent for customers.

  Please see https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/agents/nodejs-agent/getting-started/compa... for officially supported versions. Incompatibilities are expected for odd-numbered releases, which are not supported, and even-numbered releases before "official" support has been released.

• Reduced "... Aggregator data send." log messages to debug level to reduce noise of default logs.

• Prevented passing CI with .only() in mocha tests.

• Removed CI restriction for Node 12.15. Node shipped a fix for the 12.16 breakage in 12.16.1.

• Reduced logging level of raw x-queue-start or x-request-start header values to avoid logging very large values at default logging levels.

Fixes

• Bumped @newrelic/aws-sdk version to v1.1.2 from v1.1.1. https://github.com/newrelic/node-newrelic-aws-sdk/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

  Notable improvements include:

  • Fixed issue where instrumentation would crash pulling host and port values when AmazonDaxClient was used as the service for DocumentClient.

• Fixed issue where disabled agent would return an empty string instead of an empty object from API getLinkingMetadata().

  This issue would cause the @newrelic/winston-enricher module to crash when attempting to inject log metatdata.

Known issues and workarounds

• If a .NET agent is initiating distributed traces as the root service, you must update that .NET agent to version 8.24 or later before upgrading your downstream New Relic Node agents to this agent release.

New Features

• Added support for W3C Trace Context, with easy upgrade from New Relic trace context.

  • Distributed tracing now supports W3C Trace Context headers for HTTP protocols when distributed tracing is enabled. Our implementation can accept and emit both the W3C trace header format and the New Relic trace header format. This simplifies agent upgrades, allowing trace context to be propagated between services with older and newer releases of New Relic agents. W3C trace header format will always be accepted and emitted. New Relic trace header format will be accepted, and you can optionally disable emission of the New Relic trace header format.

  • When distributed tracing is enabled with distributed_tracing.enabled: true, the Node agent will now accept W3C's traceparent and tracestate headers when calling TransactionHandle#acceptDistributedTraceHeaders or automatically via http instrumentation. When calling Transaction#insertDistributedTraceHeaders, or automatically via http instrumentation, the Node agent will include the W3C headers along with the New Relic distributed tracing header, unless the New Relic trace header format is disabled using distributed_tracing.exclude_newrelic_header:true.

  • Added TransactionHandle#acceptDistributedTraceHeaders API for accepting both New Relic and W3C Trace Context distributed traces.

    Deprecated TransactionHandle#acceptDistributedTracePayload which will be removed in a future major release.

  • Added TransactionHandle#insertDistributedTraceHeaders API for adding outbound distributed trace headers. Both W3C Trace Context and New Relic formats will be included unless distributed_tracing.exclude_newrelic_header: true.

    Deprecated TransactionHandle#createDistributedTracePayload which will be removed in a future major release.

  Known issues and workarounds

  • If a .NET agent is initiating distributed traces as the root service, you must update that .NET agent to version 8.24 or later before upgrading your downstream Node New Relic agents to this agent release.

Improvements

• Improved transaction and trace ID generation.

• AWS Lambda

  • Added collection of additional AWS Lambda event source meta data.
  • Added event type detection for Lambda invocation events.
  • Expanded ARN harvest to include ALB and CloudWatch.

Fixes

• Fixed issue where Lambda invocation errors were not noticed in Node 10 or Node 12 environments.
• Pins Node 12 CI/testing version to v12.15 to avoid breakages with v12.16.0 until cause(s) resolved.
• Updated publish-docs script to use npm run instead of make.

Known issues and workarounds

• If a .NET agent is initiating distributed traces as the root service, you must update that .NET agent to version 8.24 or later before upgrading your downstream New Relic Node agents to this agent release.

Improvements

• Bumped @newrelic/aws-sdk to v1.1.1 from v1.0.0. https://github.com/newrelic/node-newrelic-aws-sdk/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md Notable improvements include:

  • Added official support for API promise calls, fixing two critical bugs.
  • Added check before applying instrumentation to avoid breaking for very old versions.

• Added bindPromise() to Shim prototype for direct usage by instrumentation. Previously, _bindPromise() was a private function in the Shim module.

• Updated language in agent to be in line with New Relic Standards.

Fixes

• Fixed spelling in configuration error. Thank you to David Ray (@daaray) for the contribution.
• Fixed long-log truncation issue in Serverless mode.