Install the Node.js Library

The Node.js Library is distributed as the npm package solarwinds-apm. Install the package, require it in your application, and automatically get visibility into the frameworks and components used by your application.

Before you start

Verify the following to ensure the library can collect and transmit data:

• The platform where your APM library will be installed is supported.

• Your application components are supported by the library.

• Your firewall configuration permits TCP/HTTPS/TLS outbound connections to apm.collector.xx-yy.cloud.solarwinds.com (where xx-yy is determined by the URL you use to access SolarWinds Observability, described in Data centers and endpoint URIs) using port 443. See Firewall or access control requirements.

  If your firewall or access control requirements do not allow such connections, configure the library to send data through a proxy.

Do not run other APM libraries alongside the SolarWinds Observability Node.js Library. Remove other APM libraries from your Node.js application before using the SolarWinds Observability Node.js Library.

Install the library

The library requires a C++ addon package called @solarwinds-apm/bindings.

Our C++ addon currently supports Linux only. The library can be installed on other platforms such as OS X but will run in "no-op" mode where it does not emit trace data or metrics.

Installation steps

The library can be installed via the standard npm command, for example:

npm install --save 'solarwinds-apm' '@opentelemetry/api@^1.3.0'

Install the library using your package manager, and then follow the configuration guide.

Enable the library

The library requires a service key to connect to your account, and it must be required into your application code.

Service key

The library requires a service key to connect to your account. This is set via the SW_APM_SERVICE_KEY environment variable or the serviceKey config file property. When using the environment variable, make sure it is available in the environment where your application is running:

export SW_APM_SERVICE_KEY="api-token-here:your-service-name"

A service key is composed of an API token with write permissions and the name of the service you're installing on. Our onboarding flow provides the full service key, or check the API Tokens page to grab a token and fill the service name yourself.

Load the library

Once installed, the library can be initialized either from the command line or the environment. Depending on the Node version, the --loader solarwinds-apm/loader (<20.8.0) or --import solarwinds-apm (>=20.8.0) flag should be used.

# <20.8.0
node --loader solarwinds-apm/loader script.js
# >=20.8.0
node --import solarwinds-apm script.js

# <20.8.0
export NODE_OPTIONS="--loader solarwinds-apm/loader"
# >=20.8.0
export NODE_OPTIONS="--import solarwinds-apm"

npm start

It is also still possible to use the -r/--require flag, but this will only work for CommonJS projects (which is still the default with Node).

Remove the library

Make sure your application entry point file no longer requires solarwinds-apm, and then uninstall it with:

npm uninstall --save solarwinds-apm

Azure App Service

Deploying applications with the SolarWinds Observability Node.js Library to Azure App Service on Linux has been tested using the vscode's Azure App Service extension, the azure CLI client "az", and the local git repository method. No special processing is required, but make sure that you don't change the default which is that the build is done by the deployment engine.

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