Ruby agent release notesRSS

v9.19.0

• Feature: Add Thread ID as attribute to all spans

  The agent will now record the Thread ID as an attribute on each span. PR#3122

• Feature: Add support for W3C TraceContext Trace Flag

  Previously, the agent would not use the trace flag field of the traceparent header for sampling decisions. This could lead to fragmented traces in the UI. While the default behavior remains unchanged, two new configuration options, distributed_tracing.sampler.remote_parent_sampled and distributed_tracing.sampler.remote_parent_not_sampled, have been introduced to allow more control over the way sampling decisions are made. PR#3135

• Bugfix: Include request.uri in Transaction events by default

  The New Relic data dictionary expects Transaction events to have the request.uri attribute. The Ruby agent now fulfills this expectation. If you would like to exclude request.uri from Transaction events, you can do so by setting transaction_events.attributes.exclude to 'request.uri'. PR#3103

• Bugfix: Fix error in Active Job instrumentation when using perform_all_later

  Previously, when Active Job's perform_all_later method was called and the agent was running, a NoMethodError would be raised with the message undefined method 'queue_name' for nil. The error has been fixed and the name of the segment will reflect the first job in the queue. Our thanks goes to @tan-linx for bringing this to our attention and providing a fix. PR#3110

v9.18.0

• Feature: Add elasticsearch.capture_cluster_name configuration option

  A new configuration option, elasticsearch.capture_cluster_name, has been added to control capturing Elasticsearch cluster names. Cluster names are captured by default, but can now be disabled as needed. PR#3038

• Feature: Add support for sidekiq-delay_extensions

  Sidekiq delay extensions were removed from Sidekiq in 7.x and are now avaliable through the sidekiq-delay_extensions gem. Thanks to @sobrinho, the agent now has continued support for delay extensions.PR#3056

• Feature: Parallelize calls for vendor metadata

  Previously, the agent would make calls for vendor metadata in a serial fashion. This could lead to a delay in starting the agent. Now, the agent will make these calls in parallel, reducing the time it takes to start the agent. PR#3094

• Bugfix: Prevent a nil segment from causing errors in Net::HTTP instrumentation

  When using JRuby, a race condition can happen that causes the segment creation to fail and return nil. This would cause an error to occur when methods were later called on the nil segment. These methods will no longer be called if the segment is nil, preventing that error from occurring. PR#3046

• Bugfix: JRuby multithreading improvements

  Added some additional nil checks and mutexes to prevent issues when using the agent on JRuby with multiple threads. Thanks to @NC-piercej for bringing this to our attention Issue#3021 PR#3053

• Bugfix: Stop reporting rescued Sidekiq::OverLimit exceptions

  When Sidekiq's concurrent rate limiters encounter an OverLimit exception, Sidekiq typically handles this by re-enqueuing the job. Previously, all occurrences of Sidekiq::OverLimit were logged as errors in New Relic, even when Sidekiq's middleware resolved the exception. New Relic will no longer report errors that are handled by Sidekiq's own middleware. Thanks to @97jaz for reporting this issue. Issue#3037 PR#3047

• Bugfix: Protect against nil agents or health checks

  In some cases the agent or health checks may be nil when they are called. Safe navigation operators have been added for protection on those occasions. PR#3049

• Bugfix: Ignore Solid Queue ThreadError: queue empty error message by default

  When using the solid_queue gem, the agent previously generated excessive warn-level logs when the queue was empty. The agent now ignores queue empty error messages of the ThreadError class by default. This behavior can be adjusted using the error_collector.ignore_messages configuration option. PR#3060

• Bugfix: Refactor URI host handling to accommodate downcasing frozen strings

  When URI host string was frozen, a FrozenError would be raised when the agent attempted to downcase the host as part of its data normalization process. Now, the update is friendly for frozen strings. Thank you @pedrol3001 for your contribution! PR#3097

v9.17.0

• Feature: Support Ruby 3.4.0

  The agent now supports Ruby 3.4.0. We've made incremental changes throughout the preview stage to reach compatibility. This release includes an update to the Thread Profiler for compatibility with Ruby 3.4.0's new backtrace format. Issue#2992 PR#2997

• Feature: Add instrumentation for aws-sdk-firehose

  The agent now has instrumentation for the aws-sdk-firehose gem. PR#2973

• Feature: Kubernetes APM auto-attach - new agent version precedent

  Previously, when a customer installed the Ruby agent via Kubernetes APM auto-attach and also had the Ruby agent listed in their Gemfile, the agent version in Gemfile would take precedence. Now, the agent version installed by auto-attach takes priority. PR#3018

• Feature: Add health checks when the agent runs within Agent Control

  When the agent is started within an Agent Control environment, a health check file will be created at the configured file location for every agent process. By default, this location is: '/newrelic/apm/health'. The health check files will be updated at the configured frequency, which defaults to every five seconds. PR#2995

• Feature: Add Redshift as recognized ActiveRecord adapter

  When the agent does not recognize an ActiveRecord adapter, the host, port, and database name information is not added to the datastore span. Redshift will now be treated like PostgreSQL, and the agent will save the host, port, and database name on the span. PR#3032

• Feature: Add instrumentation for aws-sdk-kinesis

  The agent now has instrumentation for the aws-sdk-kinesis gem. It will record message broker segments for get_records, put_record, and put_records operations. All other operations will record standard segments. PR#2974

• Bugfix: Stop emitting inaccurate debug-level log about deprecated configuration options

  In the previous major release, we dropped support for many disable_library_name configuration options in favor of instrumentation.library_name. Previously, a DEBUG level log warning appeared whenever disable_* options were set to true, even for libraries (e.g. Action Dispatch) without equivalent instrumentation.* options:

>DEBUG : [DEPRECATED] configuration disable_library_name for library_name will be removed in the next major release. Use instrumentation. library_name with one of ["auto", "disabled", "prepend", "chain"]

This inaccurate warning has been removed. If you are disabling instrumentation using instrumentation.library_name: disabled or NEW_RELIC_INSTRUMENTATION_LIBRARY_NAME=disabled, please verify the option exists by consulting our configuration documentation. If the option does not exist, check the 'Disabling' section to see if there is a related option. We apologize for the confusion. PR#3005

• Bugfix: Do not attempt to decorate logs with nil messages

  The agent no longer attempts to add New Relic linking metadata to logs with nil messages. Thank you, @arlando for bringing this to our attention! Issue#2985 PR#2986

• Bugfix: Stop renaming final Grape segment

  Previously, the agent renamed the final segment in Grape transactions to "Middleware/Grape/#{class_name}/call". This was a part of an old instrumentation pattern that is no longer relevant. Many thanks to @seriousdev-gh for bringing this issue to our attention and along with a great reproduction and suggested fix. PR#2987.

v9.16.1

• Bugfix: Added the support for the Trilogy database adapter.

  The agent now fully supports the Trilogy, a client library for MySQL-compatible database servers, and correctly lists MySQL as the corresponding database in the UI. PR#2966.

v9.16.0

Version 9.16.0 introduces the following features and bug fixes:

• Feature: Instrumentation for aws-sdk-lambda

  When the aws-sdk-lambda gem is available and used to invoke remote AWS Lambda functions, the timing and error details of the invocations will be reported to New Relic. PR#2926.

• Feature: Add new configuration options to attach custom tags (labels) to logs

  The Ruby agent now allows you to opt-in to adding your custom tags (labels) to agent-forwarded logs. With custom tags on logs, platform engineers can easily filter, search, and correlate log data for faster and more efficient troubleshooting, improved performance, and optimized resource utilization. PR#2925

• Feature: Update View Component instrumentation+

  The .identifier method will be formally exposed as part of the View Component public API. The agent will now use this method for building metric names when available, ensuring ongoing compatibility with all View Component versions. PR#2956

• Bugfix: Record explain plan traces on Rails 7.2+

  Rails 7.2 removed adapter-specific connection methods (ex. ActiveRecord::Base.postgresql_connection) and replaced them with ActiveRecord::Base.with_connection. Our explain plan feature relies on making a connection to the database to create an explain plan trace. Due to a bug in our tests, we missed this regression. Now, the agent uses the new method to fetch explain plans on Rails 7.2+. Thank you, @gsar and @gstark for bringing this to our attention! Issue#2922 PR#2940

v9.15.0

Version 9.15.0 updates View Component instrumentation to use a default metric name when one is unavailable, adds a configuration option to associate the AWS account ID with the DynamoDB calls from the AWS SDK, resolves a bug in rdkafka instrumentation when using the karafka-rdkafka gem, resolves a bug in the ruby-kafka instrumentation, fixes a bug with Grape instrumentation, and addresses a bug preventing the agent from running in serverless mode in an AWS Lambda layer.

• Feature: New configuration option cloud.aws.account_id

  A new configuration option has been added, cloud.aws.account_id, that will allow New Relic to provide more details about certain calls made using the AWS SDK. For example, relationships between AWS services instrumented with New Relic's CloudWatch Metric Streams will have relationships formed in the service map with APM applications. Currently, the DynamoDB instrumentation is the only instrumentation that will make use of this configuration option, but this will be used in future instrumentation as well. PR#2904

• Feature: Use default View/component metric name for unidentified View Components

  Previously, when a View Component metric name could not be identified, the agent would set the name as nil. Now, the agent defaults to using View/component as the metric name when one can not be identified. PR#2907

• Bugfix: Instrumentation errors when using the karafka-rdkafka gem

  Due to version differences between the rdkafka gem and karafka-rdkafka gem, the agent could encounter an error when it tried to install rdkafka instrumentation. This has now been resolved. Thank you to @krisdigital for bringing this issue to our attention. PR#2880

• Bugfix: Stop calling deprecated all_specs method to check for the presence of newrelic-grape

  In 9.14.0, we released a fix for calls to the deprecated Bundler.rubygems.all_specs, but the fix fell short for the agent's Grape instrumentation and deprecation warnings could still be raised. The condition has been simplified and deprecation warnings should no longer be raised. Thank you, @excelsior for bringing this to our attention. Issue#2885 PR#2906

• Bugfix: Instrumentation errors when using the ruby-kafka gem

  Kafka::Consumer#each_message takes keyword arguments, while the prepended method is defined with a single splat positional argument. In Ruby >= 3.0, this signature mismatch raises an ArgumentError. Thank you @patrickarnett for providing this bugfix. PR#2915

• Bugfix: Restore AWS Lambda layer operational functionality

  Version 9.14.0 of the agent introduced an optimization related to how the agent handles boolean configuration parameters which inadvertently caused the agent to stop operating properly in an AWS Lambda layer context. Issue#2919PR#2920

v9.14.0

Version 9.14.0 adds Apache Kafka instrumentation for the rdkafka and ruby-kafka gems, introduces a configuration-based, automatic way to add custom instrumentation method tracers, correctly captures MIME type for ActionDispatch 7.0+ requests, properly handles Boolean coercion for newrelic.yml configuration, fixes a JRuby bug in the configuration manager, fixes a bug related to Bundler.rubygems.installed_specs, and fixes a bug to make the agent compatible with ViewComponent v3.15.0+.

• Feature: Add Apache Kafka instrumentation for the rdkafka and ruby-kafka gems

  The agent now has instrumentation for both the rdkafka and ruby-kafka gems. The agent will record transactions and message broker segments for produce and consume calls made using these gems. PR#2824 PR#2842

• Feature: Add a configuration option to permit custom method tracers to be defined automatically

  A new :automatic_custom_instrumentation_method_list configuration parameter has been added to permit the user to define a list of fully qualified (namespaced) Ruby methods for the agent to automatically add custom instrumentation for without requiring any code modifications to be made to the classes that define the methods.

  The list should be an array of CLASS#METHOD (for instance methods) and/or CLASS.METHOD (for class methods) strings.

  Use fully qualified class names (using the :: delimiter) that include any module or class namespacing.

  Here is some Ruby source code that defines a render_png instance method for an Image class and a notify class method for a User class, both within a MyCompany module namespace:

  module MyCompany
    class Image
      def render_png
        # code to render a PNG
      end
    end
  
    class User
      def self.notify
        # code to notify users
      end
    end
  end

  Copy

  Given that source code, the newrelic.yml config file might request instrumentation for both of these methods like so:

  automatic_custom_instrumentation_method_list:
    - MyCompany::Image#render_png
    - MyCompany::User.notify

  Copy

  That configuration example uses YAML array syntax to specify both methods. Alternatively, a comma-delimited string can be used instead:

  automatic_custom_instrumentation_method_list: 'MyCompany::Image#render_png, MyCompany::User.notify'

  Copy

  Whitespace around the comma(s) in the list is optional. When configuring the agent with a list of methods via the NEW_RELIC_AUTOMATIC_CUSTOM_INSTRUMENTATION_METHOD_LIST environment variable, this comma-delimited string format should be used:

  export NEW_RELIC_AUTOMATIC_CUSTOM_INSTRUMENTATION_METHOD_LIST='MyCompany::Image#render_png, MyCompany::User.notify'

  Copy

  PR#2851

• Feature: Collect just MIME type for ActionDispatch 7.0+ requests

  Rails 7.0 introduced changes to the behavior of ActionDispatch::Request#content_type, adding extra request-related details the agent wasn't expecting to collect. Additionally, the agent's use of content_type was triggering deprecation warnings. The agent now uses ActionDispatch::Request#media_type to capture the MIME type. Thanks to @internethostage for letting us know about this change. Issue#2500 PR#2855

• Bugfix: Corrected Boolean coercion for newrelic.yml configuration

  Previously, any String assigned to New Relic configurations expecting a Boolean value were evaluated as true. This could lead to unexpected behavior. For example, setting application_logging.enabled: 'false' in newrelic.yml would incorrectly evaluate to application_logging.enabled: true due to the truthy nature of Strings.

  Now, the agent strictly interprets Boolean configuration values. It recognizes both actual Boolean values and certain Strings/Symbols:

  • 'true', 'yes', or 'on' (evaluates to true)
  • 'false', 'no', or 'off' (evaluates to false)

  Any other inputs will revert to the setting's default configuration value. PR#2847

• Bugfix: JRuby not saving configuration values correctly in configuration manager

  Previously, a change made to fix a different JRuby bug caused the agent to not save configuration values correctly in the configuration manager when running on JRuby. This has been fixed. PR#2848

• Bugfix: Update condition to verify Bundler.rubygems.installed_specs is available

  To address a recent Bundler deprecation warning, we started using Bundler.rubygems.installed_specs instead of Bundler.rubygems.all_specs in environments that seemed appropriate. We discovered the version constraint we used was too low. Now, rather than check the version, we check for the method using respond_to?. PR#2853

• Bugfix: Support view_component v3.15.0+

  Previously the agent had been making use of a private API to obtain a component identifier value. This private API was dropped in v3.15.0 of view_component, resulting in errors from the New Relic Ruby agent's continued attempts to use it. Many thanks to community member @navidemad for bringing this issue to our attention and supplying a bugfix with PR#2870.

v9.13.0

Version 9.13.0 enhances support for AWS Lambda functions, adds experimental OpenSearch instrumentation, updates framework detection, silences a Bundler deprecation warning, fixes Falcon dispatcher detection, fixes a bug with Redis instrumentation installation, and addresses a JRuby-specific concurrency issue.

• Feature: Enhance AWS Lambda function instrumentation

When utilized via the latest New Relic Ruby layer for AWS Lambda, the agent now offers enhanced support for AWS Lambda function instrumentation.

• The agent's instrumentation for AWS Lambda functions now supports distributed tracing.
• Web-triggered invocations are now identified as being "web"-based when an API Gateway call is involved, with support for both API Gateway versions 1.0 and 2.0.
• Web-based calls have the HTTP method, URI, and status code recorded.
• The agent now recognizes and reports on 12 separate AWS resources that are capable of triggering a Lambda function invocation: ALB, API Gateway V1, API Gateway V2, CloudFront, CloudWatch Scheduler, DynamoStreams, Firehose, Kinesis, S3, SES, SNS, and SQS.
• The type of the triggering resource and its ARN will be recorded for each resource, and for many of them, extra resource-specific attributes will be recorded as well. For example, Lambda function invocations triggered by S3 bucket activity will now result in the S3 bucket name being recorded. PR#2811

• Feature: Add experimental OpenSearch instrumentation

  The agent will now automatically instrument the opensearch-ruby gem. We're marking this instrumentation as experimental because more work is needed to fully test it. OpenSearch instrumentation provides telemetry similar to Elasticsearch. Thank you, @Earlopain for reporting the issue and @praveen-ks for an initial draft of the instrumentation. Issue#2228 PR#2796

• Feature: Improve framework detection accuracy for Grape and Padrino

  Previously, applications using the Grape framework would set ruby as their framework within the Environment Report. Now, Grape applications will be set to grape. Similarly, applications using the Padrino framework would be set to sinatra. Now, they will be set to padrino. This will help the New Relic security agent compatibility checks. Thank you, @prateeksen for making this change. Issue#2777 PR#2789

• Feature: Silence Bundler all_specs deprecation warning

  Bundler.rubygems.all_specs was deprecated in favor of Bundler.rubygems.installed_specs in Bundler versions 2+, causing the agent to emit deprecation warnings. The method has been updated when Bundler 2+ is detected and warnings are now silenced. Thanks to @jcoyne for reporting this issue. Issue#2733 PR#2823

• Bugfix: Fix Falcon dispatcher detection

  Previously, we tried to use the object space to determine whether the Falcon web server was in use. However, Falcon is not added to the object space until after the environment report is generated, resulting in a nil dispatcher. Now, we revert to an earlier strategy that discovered the dispatcher using File.basename. Thank you, @prateeksen for reporting this issue and researching the problem. Issue#2778 PR#2795

• Bugfix: Fix for a Redis instrumentation error when Redis::Cluster::Client is present

  The Redis instrumentation previously contained a bug that would cause it to error out when Redis::Cluster::Client was present, owing to the use of a Ruby return outside of a method. Thanks very much to @jdelStrother for not only reporting this bug but pointing us to the root cause as well. Issue#2814 PR#2816

• Bugfix: Address JRuby concurrency issue with config hash accessing

  The agent's internal configuration class maintains a hash that occassionally gets rebuilt. During the rebuild, certain previously dynamically determined instrumentation values are preserved for the benefit of the New Relic Ruby security agent. After reports from JRuby customers regarding concurrency issues related to the hash being accessed while being modified, two separate fixes went into the hash rebuild logic previously: a Hash#dup operation and a synchronize do block. But errors were still reported. We ourselves remain unable to reproduce these concurrency errors despite using the same exact versions of JRuby and all reported software. After confirming that the hash access code in question is only needed for the Ruby security agent (which operates only in non-production dedicated security testing environments), we have introduced a new fix for JRuby customers that will simply skip over the troublesome code when JRuby is in play but the security agent is not. PR#2798

v9.12.0

Version 9.12.0 adds support for the newrelic_security agent, introduces instrumentation for the LogStasher gem, improves instrumentation for the redis-clustering gem, and updates the Elasticsearch instrumentation to only attempt to get the cluster name once per client, even if it fails.

• Feature: Add support for the newrelic_security agent

  New Relic Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) can help you prevent cyberattacks and breaches on your applications by probing your running code for exploitable vulnerabilities.

  The newrelic_security gem provides this feature for Ruby. It depends on newrelic_rpm. This is the first version of newrelic_rpm compatible with newrelic_security.

  At this time, the security agent is intended for use only within a dedicated security testing environment with data that can tolerate modification or deletion. The security agent is available as a separate Ruby gem, newrelic_security. It is recommended that this separate gem only be introduced to a security testing environment by leveraging Bundler grouping like so:

  # Gemfile
    gem 'newrelic_rpm'               # New Relic APM observability agent
    gem 'newrelic-infinite_tracing'  # New Relic Infinite Tracing
  
    group :security do
      gem 'newrelic_security', require: false        # New Relic security agent
    end

  Copy

  In order to run the security agent, you need to update your configuration. At a minimum, security.agent.enabled and security.enabled must be set to true. They are false by default. Similar to the gem installation, we recommend you set these configurations for a special security testing environment only.

  Here's an example using newrelic.yml:

  common: &default_settings
      license_key: <%= ENV['NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY'] %>
      app_name: "Example app"
  
    development:
      <<: *default_settings
      app_name: <%= app_name %> (Development)
  
    security:
      <<: *default_settings
      security.enabled: true
      security.agent.enabled: true
  
    production:
      <<: *default_settings

  Copy

  The following configuration relate to the newrelic_security gem:

  Configuration name	Default	Behavior
  security.agent.enabled	false	If true, the security agent is loaded (a Ruby 'require' is performed)
  security.enabled	false	If true, the security agent is started (the agent runs in its event loop)
  security.mode	'IAST'	Defines the mode for the security agent to operate in. Currently only 'IAST' is supported
  security.validator_service_url	'wss://csec.nr-data.net'	Defines the endpoint URL for posting security related data
  security.detection.rci.enabled	true	If true, enables RCI (remote code injection) detection
  security.detection.rxss.enabled	true	If true, enables RXSS (reflected cross-site scripting) detection
  security.detection.deserialization.enabled	true	If true, enables deserialization detection
  security.application_info.port	nil	An Integer representing the port the application is listening on. This setting is mandatory for Passenger servers. Other servers should be detected by default.

• Feature: Add instrumentation for LogStasher

  The agent will now record logs generated by LogStasher. Versions 1.0.0 and above of the LogStasher gem are supported. PR#2559

• Feature: Add instrumentation for redis-clustering

  Version 5.x of the redis gem moved cluster behavior into a different gem, redis-clustering. This gem can access instrumentation registered through RedisClient::Middleware. Previously, the agent only instrumented the call_pipelined method through this approach, but now users of the redis-clustering gem will also have instrumentation registered for connect and call methods. In addition, the way the database_name attribute is set for Redis datastore spans is now compatible with all versions of Redis supported by the New Relic Ruby agent. Thank you, @praveen-ks for bringing this to our attention. Issue#2444 PR#2720

• Bugfix: Update Elasticsearch instrumentation to only attempt to get the cluster name once per client

  Previously, the agent would attempt to get the cluster name every time a call was made if it was not already captured. This could lead to a large number of failures if the cluster name could not be retrieved. Now, the agent will only attempt to get the cluster name once per client, even if it fails. Thank you, @ascoppa for bringing this to our attention. Issue#2730 PR#2743

• Feature: Produce metrics for 4 additional Action Controller Rails notifications

  Four additional Action Controller related Rails notifications are now subscribed to by the agent to produce telemetry. These 4 are exist_fragment?, expire_fragment, read_fragment, and write_fragment. As with instrumentation for Action Controller itself, these notifications are enabled by default and can be disabled by setting :disable_action_controller to true in the agent's newrelic.yml configuration file. PR#2745