Ruby agent release notesRSS

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

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  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

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  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'

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  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'

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  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

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  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

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  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

v9.11.0

Version 9.11.0 introduces instrumentation for the aws-sdk-sqs gem, fixes a bug related to expected errors not bearing a "true" value for the "expected" attribute if expected as a result of an HTTP status code match and changes the way Stripe instrumentation metrics are named to prevent high-cardinality issues.

• Feature: Add instrumentation for SQS

  The agent has added instrumentation for the aws-sdk-sqs gem. The agent will now record message broker spans for SQS client calls made with the aws-sdk-sqs gem. PR#2679

• Bugfix: HTTP status code based expected errors will now have an "expected" value of "true"

  Previously when an error was treated as expected by the agent as a result of a matching HTTP status code being found in the :'error_collector.expected_status_codes' configuration setting, the error would not appear with an "expected" attribute value of "true" in the errors in the errors inbox. PR#2710

• Bugfix: Stripe metric names will no longer include full request paths to limit the unique name count

  The Stripe instrumentation introduced in agent version v9.5.0 produced instrumentation metric names that used the full Stripe request path. For any significant Stripe usage, this could quickly lead to very large number of distinct metric names. Now only the API version and the category part of the request path are included in the metric name which still includes the "Stripe" opener and method (ex: "get") closer. Thanks to @jdelStrother and @jsneedles for bringing this issue to our attention and providing terrific information explaining the problem and potential paths to resolution. PR#2716

v9.10.2

Version 9.10.2 fixes a bug related to the new DynamoDB instrumentation and removes Rails::Command::RakeCommand from the default list of denylisted constants.

• Bugfix: DynamoDB instrumentation logging errors when trying to get account_id

  When trying to access data needed to add the account_id to the DynamoDB span, the agent encountered an error when certain credentials classes were used. This has been fixed. Thanks to @kichik for bringing this to our attention. PR#2864

• Bugfix: Remove Rails::Command::RakeCommand from the default list of autostart.denylisted_constants

  The default value for the autostart.denylisted_constants configuration was changed in 9.10.0 to include Rails::Command::RunnerCommand and Rails::Command::RakeCommand. The inclusion of Rails::Command::RakeCommand prevented the agent from starting automatically when Solid Queue was started using bin/rails solid_queue:start. We recognize there are many commands nested within Rails::Command::RakeCommand and have decided to remove it from the default list. We encourage users who do not want the agent to run on Rails::Command::RakeCommand to add the constant to their configuration. This can be accomplished by adding the following to your newrelic.yml file:

  autostart.denylisted_constants: "Rails::Command::ConsoleCommand,Rails::Command::CredentialsCommand,Rails::Command::Db::System::ChangeCommand,Rails::Command::DbConsoleCommand,Rails::Command::DestroyCommand,Rails::Command::DevCommand,Rails::Command::EncryptedCommand,Rails::Command::GenerateCommand,Rails::Command::InitializersCommand,Rails::Command::NotesCommand,Rails::Command::RakeCommand,Rails::Command::RoutesCommand,Rails::Command::RunnerCommand,Rails::Command::SecretsCommand,Rails::Console,Rails::DBConsole"

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  Thank you, @edariedl, for reporting this issue. Issue#2677 PR#2694

v9.10.1

• Bugfix: Incompatibility with Bootstrap

Version 9.10.1 fixes an incompatibility between the agent and the Bootstrap gem caused by agent v9.10.0's introduction of a lib/bootstrap.rb file. Thank you to @dorner for reporting the bug and identifying the 'bootstrap' name collision as the root cause. BUG#2675 PR#2676

v9.10.0

Version 9.10.0 introduces instrumentation for DynamoDB, adds a new feature to automatically apply nonces from the Rails content security policy, fixes a bug that would cause an expected error to negatively impact a transaction's Apdex, and fixes the agent's autostart logic so that by default rails runner and rails db commands will not cause the agent to start.

• Feature: Add instrumentation for DynamoDB

  The agent has added instrumentation for the aws-sdk-dynamodb gem. The agent will now record datastore spans for DynamoDB client calls made with the aws-sdk-dynamodb gem. PR#2642

• Feature: Automatically apply nonces from the Rails content security policy

  To auto-inject browser monitoring with the New Relic Ruby agent, you either need to set your content security policy to 'unsafe-inline' or provide a nonce. Previously, the only way to provide a nonce was by using the NewRelic::Agent.browser_timing_header API. Now, when a Rails application uses the content security policy configuration to add a nonce, the nonce will be automatically applied to the browser agent. A new configuration option, browser_monitoring.content_security_policy_nonce, toggles this feature. It is on by default. Thank you @baldarn for submitting this feature! PR#2544

• Bugfix: Expected errors related to HTTP status code, class, and message won't impact Apdex

  The agent is supposed to prevent observed application errors from negatively impacting Apdex if the errors are either ignored or expected. There are two ways for the agent to expect an error: via the notice_error API receiving an expected: true argument or via matches made against user-configured lists for expected HTTP status codes (:'error_collector.expected_status_codes'), expected error classes (:'error_collector.expected_classes'), or expected error messages (:'error_collector.expected_messages'). Previously, only errors expected via the notice_error API were correctly prevented from impacting Apdex. Expected errors set by configuration incorrectly impacted Apdex. This behavior has been fixed and now both types of expected errors will correctly not impact Apdex. Thanks very much to @florianpilz for bringing this issue to our attention. PR#2619

• Bugfix: Do not start the agent automatically when rails runner or rails db commands are run

  PR#2239 taught the agent how to recognize bin/rails based contexts that it should not automatically start up in. But bin/rails runner and bin/rails db commands would still see the agent start automatically. Those 2 contexts will now no longer see the agent start automatically. Thank you to @jdelStrother for both bringing the bin/rails context to our attention and for letting us know about the bin/rails runner and bin/rails db outliers that still needed fixing. PR#2623

  Older agent versions that are still supported by New Relic can update to the new list of denylisted constants by having the following line added to the newrelic.yml configuration file:

  autostart.denylisted_constants: "Rails::Command::ConsoleCommand,Rails::Command::CredentialsCommand,Rails::Command::Db::System::ChangeCommand,Rails::Command::DbConsoleCommand,Rails::Command::DestroyCommand,Rails::Command::DevCommand,Rails::Command::EncryptedCommand,Rails::Command::GenerateCommand,Rails::Command::InitializersCommand,Rails::Command::NotesCommand,Rails::Command::RakeCommand,Rails::Command::RoutesCommand,Rails::Command::RunnerCommand,Rails::Command::SecretsCommand,Rails::Console,Rails::DBConsole"

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