Ruby agent release notesRSS

v9.5.0

Version 9.5.0 introduces Stripe instrumentation, allows the agent to record additional response information on a transaction when middleware instrumentation is disabled, introduces new :'sidekiq.args.include' and :'sidekiq.args.exclude: configuration options to permit capturing only certain Sidekiq job arguments, updates Elasticsearch datastore instance metrics, and fixes a bug in NewRelic::Rack::AgentHooks.needed?.

• Feature: Add Stripe instrumentation

  Stripe calls are now automatically instrumented. Additionally, new :'stripe.user_data.include' and :'stripe.user_data.exclude' configuration options permit capturing custom user_data key-value pairs that can be stored in Stripe events. No user_data key-value pairs are captured by default. The agent currently supports Stripe versions 5.38.0+. PR#2180

• Feature: Report transaction HTTP status codes when middleware instrumentation is disabled

  Previously, when disable_middleware_instrumentation was set to true, the agent would not record the value of the response code or content type on the transaction. This was due to the possibility that a middleware could alter the response, which would not be captured by the agent when the middleware instrumentation was disabled. However, based on customer feedback, the agent will now report the HTTP status code and content type on a transaction when middleware instrumentation is disabled. PR#2175

• Feature: Permit capturing only certain Sidekiq job arguments

  New :'sidekiq.args.include' and :'sidekiq.args.exclude' configuration options have been introduced to permit fine grained control over which Sidekiq job arguments (args) are reported to New Relic. By default, no Sidekiq args are reported. To report any Sidekiq options, the :'attributes.include' array must include the string 'jobs.sidekiq.args.*'. With that string in place, all arguments will be reported unless one or more of the new include/exclude options are used. The :'sidekiq.args.include' option can be set to an array of strings. Each of those strings will be passed to Regexp.new and collectively serve as an allowlist for desired args. For job arguments that are hashes, if a hash's key matches one of the include patterns, then both the key and its corresponding value will be included. For scalar arguments, the string representation of the scalar will need to match one of the include patterns to be captured. The :'sidekiq.args.exclude' option works similarly. It can be set to an array of strings that will each be passed to Regexp.new to create patterns. These patterns will collectively serve as a denylist for unwanted job args. Any hash key, hash value, or scalar that matches an exclude pattern will be excluded (not sent to New Relic). PR#2177

  newrelic.yml examples:

  Any string in the :'sidekiq.args.include' or :'sidekiq.args.exclude' arrays will be turned into a regular expression. Knowledge of Ruby regular expression support can be leveraged but is not required. If regular expression syntax is not used, inexact matches will be performed and the string "Fortune" will match both "Fortune 500" and "Fortune and Glory". For exact matches, use regular expression anchors.

  # Include any argument whose string representation matches either "apple" or "banana"
  # The "apple" pattern will match both "green apple" and "red apple"
  sidekiq.args.include:
    - apple
    - banana
  
  # Exclude any arguments that match either "grape", "orange", or "pear"
  sidekiq.args.exclude:
    - grape
    - orange
    - pear
  
  # Exclude any argument that is a 9 digit number
  sidekiq.args.exclude:
    - '\d{9}'
  
  # Include anything that starts with "blue" but exclude anything that ends in "green"
  sidekiq.args.include
    - '^blue'
  
  sidekiq.args.exclude
    - 'green$'

  Copy

• Bugfix: Update Elasticsearch datastore instance metric to use port instead of path

  Previously, the Elasticsearch datastore instance metric (Datastore/instance/Elasticsearch/<host>/*) used the path as the final value. This caused a metrics grouping issue for some users, as every document ID created a unique metric. Now, the datastore instance metric has been updated to use the port as the final value. This also has the benefit of being more accurate for datastore instance metrics, as this port is directly associated with the already listed host.

• Bugfix: Resolve inverted logic of NewRelic::Rack::AgentHooks.needed?

  Previously, NewRelic::Rack::AgentHooks.needed? incorrectly used inverted logic. This has now been resolved, allowing AgentHooks to be installed when disable_middleware_instrumentation is set to true. PR#2175

v9.4.2

Version 9.4.2 of the agent re-addresses the 9.4.0 issue of NoMethodError seen when using the uppy-s3_multipart gem.

• Bugfix: Resolve NoMethodError

  Ruby agent 9.4.1 attempted to fix a NoMethodError introduced in 9.4.0. A missing require prevented a method from scoping appropriately and has now been added. Thanks to @spickermann and @ColinOrr for working with us to get this resolved. PR#2167

v9.4.1

Version 9.4.1 of the agent resolves a NoMethodError introduced in 9.4.0.

• Bugfix: Resolve NoMethodError

  Ruby agent 9.4.0 introduced Roda instrumentation, which caused a NoMethodError to be raised when attempting to name a Roda transaction. This has been fixed. Thanks to @spickermann for reporting this issue. PR#2167

v9.4.0

Version 9.4.0 of the agent adds Roda instrumentation, adds a new allow_all_headers configuration option to permit capturing all HTTP headers, introduces improved error tracking functionality by associating a transaction id with each error, and uses more reliable network timeout logic.

• Feature: Add Roda instrumentation

  Roda is a now an instrumented framework. The agent currently supports Roda versions 3.19.0+. PR#2144

• Feature: New allow_all_headers configuration option

  A new allow_all_headers configuration option brings parity with the Node.js agent to capture all HTTP request headers.

  This configuration option:

  • Defaults to false
  • Is not compatible with high-security mode
  • Requires Rack version 2 or higher (as does Ruby on Rails version 5 and above)
  • Respects all existing behavior for the attributes.include and attributes.exclude configuration options
  • Captures the additional headers as attributes prefixed with request.headers.

  This work was done in response to a feature request submitted by community member @jamesarosen. Thank you very much, @jamesarosen! Issue#1029

• Feature: Improved error tracking transaction linking

  Errors tracked and sent to the New Relic errors inbox will now be associated with a transaction id to enable improved UI/UX associations between transactions and errors. PR#2035

• Feature: Use Net::HTTP native timeout logic

  In line with current Ruby best practices, make use of Net::HTTP's own timeout logic and avoid the use of Timeout.timeout() when possible. The agent's data transmissions and cloud provider detection routines have been updated accordingly. PR#2147

v9.3.1

Version 9.3.1 of the agent fixes NewRelic::Agent.require_test_helper.

• Bugfix: Fix NewRelic::Agent.require_test_helper

  Version 9.3.0 of the agent made a change to the files distributed with the gem. This change unintentionally broke the NewRelic::Agent.require_test_helper API by removing the test/agent_helper.rb file. The file has been added back to the gem. This change also removes the lib/new_relic/build.rb file from the list because it is no longer created with our current release process.

  Our thanks go to @ajesler for reporting this issue and writing a test for the bug. Issue#2113, PR#2115, Issue#2117, PR#2118

• Source Documentation: update the Rack spec URL

  Community member @olleolleolle noticed that our source code was referencing a now defunct URL for the Rack specification and submitted PR#2121 to update it. He also provided a terrific recommendation that we automate the checking of links to proactively catch defunct ones in future. Thanks, @olleolleolle!

v9.3.0

Version 9.3.0 of the agent adds log-level filtering, adds custom attributes for log events, and updates instrumentation for Action Cable. It also provides fixes for how Fiber args are treated, Code-Level Metrics, unnecessary files being included in the gem, and NewRelic::Agent::Logging::DecoratingFormatter#clear_tags! being incorrectly private.

• Feature: Filter forwarded logs based on level

  Previously, all log events, regardless of their level, were forwarded to New Relic when log forwarding was enabled. Now, you may specify the lowest log level you'd like forwarded to New Relic.

  Configuration name	Default	Behavior	Valid values
  application_logging.forwarding.log_level	debug	Sets the minimum log level for events forwarded to New Relic	debug, info, warn, error, fatal, unknown

  This setting uses Ruby's Logger::Severity constants integer values to determine precedence.

• Feature: Custom attributes for logs

  You can now add custom attributes to log events forwarded to New Relic! You can pass these attributes using an API and/or a configuration option.

  Configuration name	Default	Behavior
  application_logging.forwarding.custom_attributes	{}	A hash with key/value pairs to add as custom attributes to all log events forwarded to New Relic. If sending using an environment variable, the value must be formatted like: "key1=value1,key2=value2"

Call the API using NewRelic::Agent.add_custom_log_attributes and passing your attributes as a hash. For example, you could call: NewRelic::Agent.add_custom_log_attributes(dyno: ENV['DYNO'], pod_name: ENV['POD_NAME']), to add the attributes dyno and pod_name to your log events.

Attributes passed to the API or the configuration will be added to all log events.

Thanks to @rajpawar02 for raising this issue and @askreet for helping us with the solution. Issue#1141, PR#2084, PR#2087

• Feature: Instrument transmit_subscription-related Action Cable actions

  This change subscribes the agent to the Active Support notifications for:

  • transmit_subscription_confirmation.action_cable
  • transmit_subscription_rejection.action_cable

• Bugfix: Removed unwanted files from being included in file_list in gemspec

  Previously, the agent was including some files in the gem that were not needed but added to the size of the gem. These files will no longer be included. Thanks to @manuraj17 for the contribution! PR#2089

• Bugfix: Report Code-Level Metrics for Rails controller methods

  Controllers in Rails automatically render views with names that correspond to valid routes. This means that a controller method may not have a corresponding method in the controller class. Code-Level Metrics now report on these methods and don't log false warnings. Thanks to @jcrisp for reporting this issue. PR#2061

• Bugfix: Code-Level Metrics for ActiveRecord models

  Classes that inherit from ActiveRecord were not reporting Code-Level Metrics due to an error in the agent when identifying the class name. This has been fixed and Code-Level Metrics will now report for ActiveRecord models. Thanks to @abigail-rolling for reporting this issue. PR#2092.

• Bugfix: Private method clear_tags! for NewRelic::Agent::Logging::DecoratingFormatter

  As part of a refactor included in a previous release of the agent, the method NewRelic::Agent::Logging::DecoratingFormatter#clear_tags! was incorrectly made private. This method is now public again. Thanks to @dark-panda for reporting this issue. PR#

• Bugfix: Fix the way args are handled for Fibers

  Previously, the agent treated Fiber args the same as it was treating Thread args, which is not correct. Args are passed to Fiber#resume, and not Fiber.new. This has been fixed, and the agent will properly preserve args for both Fiber and Thread classes. This also caused an error to occur when using Async 2.6.2, due to mismatching initalize definitions for Fiber prepended modules. This has been fixed as well. Thanks to @travisbell for bringing this to our attention. PR#2083

v9.2.2

Version 9.2.2 of the agent fixes a bug with the Transaction#finished? method.

• Bugfix: Transaction#finished? no longer throws a NoMethodError when initial_segment is nil

  This change adds a safe navigation operator to Transaction#finished? to prevent NoMethodErrors when a transaction does not have any segments. Our thanks goes to @JulienDefrance for reporting this issue. PR#1983

v9.2.1

Version 9.2.1 fixes a bug causing the agent to continue storing data on finished transactions, and a bug preventing errors from being expected.

• Bugfix: Finished transactions continue to store data on different threads

  Previously, when a new thread was spawned the agent would continue using the current transaction to record data on, even if this transaction had finished already in a different thread. Now the agent will only use the current transaction in the new thread if it is not yet finished. Thank you to @fcheung for reporting this bug and providing us with an extremely helpful reproduction to debug. PR#1969

• Bugfix: Expected Errors passed to notice_error are expected again

  A bug was introduced in 9.1.0 that caused to agent not to mark errors as expected if the error was passed in to notice_error using the expected: true parameter. This has been fixed and errors will now be marked as expected, as expected. Thank you very much to @eiskrenkov for finding this bug and contributing a fix for it! PR#1954

v9.2.0

Version 9.2.0 of the agent introduces some performance improvements for working with high numbers of nested actions, and deprecates instrumentation for the memcached and memcache-client gems (with dalli still being supported).

• Feature: Enhance performance for handling high numbers of nested actions

  With Issue#1910, community members @parkerfinch and @travisbell informed us of some CPU spikes and process hangs seen only when using the agent's thread instrumentation, which was enabled by default with v9.0. When thread instrumentation is enabled, instrumented actions taking place within threads are seen and reported on by the agent whereas they would have previously gone unnoticed. This is a great improvement to the agent's usefulness in an async context, and also makes it easier for higher numbers of nested actions to be observed. For example, if an instrumented background job framework (Sidekiq, Resque) kicks off a job that the agent notices and then that job in turn performs actions such as database queries that the agent also instruments, nested actions are seen. However, with very high (10,000+) numbers of actions nested within a single instrumented outer action, the agent would struggle to efficiently crunch through all of the collected data at the time when the outer action finished. The agent should now be much more efficient when any observed action with lots of nested actions is finished. Our performance testing was conducted with hundreds of thousands of nested actions taking place, and we hope that the benefits of thread tracing can now be enjoyed without any drawbacks. Thanks very much @parkerfinch and @travisbell! PR#1927

• Feature: Deprecate memcached and memcache-client instrumentation

  Instrumentation for the memcached and memcache-client libraries is deprecated and will be removed during the next major release.