---
title: Quickstart for hosts / VMs on Elastic Cloud Serverless
description: Step-by-step guide for setting up the EDOT Collector and SDKs on Elastic Cloud Serverless to collect host metrics, logs, and application traces via OTLP.
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/solutions/observability/get-started/opentelemetry/quickstart/serverless/hosts_vms
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless
  - Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector
  - Elastic Observability
applies_to:
  - Serverless Observability projects: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
  - Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector: Generally available
---

# Quickstart for hosts / VMs on Elastic Cloud Serverless
Learn how to set up the EDOT Collector and EDOT SDKs on hosts and VMs with Elastic Cloud Serverless to collect host metrics, logs, and application traces. Send the data through OTLP to your Elastic Serverless project.

## Guided setup

Use the **Add data** screen in Elastic Observability to generate install commands that are already configured with the values you need.
1. Open Elastic Observability.
2. Go to **Add data**.
3. Select what you want to monitor.
4. Follow the instructions.


## Manual installation

Follow these steps to deploy the EDOT Collector and EDOT OTel SDKs with Elastic Cloud Serverless.
<stepper>
  <step title="Download the EDOT Collector">
    [Download the EDOT Collector](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/edot-collector/download) for your operating system.
  </step>

  <step title="Configure the EDOT Collector">
    Follow these steps to retrieve the managed OTLP endpoint URL for your Serverless project:
    1. In Elastic Cloud Serverless, open your Observability project.
    2. Go to **Add data** → **Application** → **OpenTelemetry**.
    3. Select **Managed OTLP Endpoint** in the second step.
    4. Copy the OTLP endpoint configuration value.
    5. Select **Create API Key** to generate an API key.
    Replace `<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT>` and `<ELASTIC_API_KEY>` before applying the following command.
    <tab-set>
      <tab-item title="Linux">
        ```bash
        ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT=<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT> && \
        ELASTIC_API_KEY=<ELASTIC_API_KEY> && \
        cp ./otel_samples/managed_otlp/logs_metrics_traces.yml ./otel.yml && \
        mkdir -p ./data/otelcol && \
        sed -i "s#\${env:STORAGE_DIR}#${PWD}/data/otelcol#g" ./otel.yml && \
        sed -i "s#\${env:ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT}#${ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT}#g" ./otel.yml && \
        sed -i "s#\${env:ELASTIC_API_KEY}#${ELASTIC_API_KEY}#g" ./otel.yml
        ```
      </tab-item>

      <tab-item title="macOS">
        ```bash
        ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT=<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT> && \
        ELASTIC_API_KEY=<ELASTIC_API_KEY> && \
        cp ./otel_samples/managed_otlp/logs_metrics_traces.yml ./otel.yml && \
        mkdir -p ./data/otelcol && \
        sed -i '' "s#\${env:STORAGE_DIR}#${PWD}/data/otelcol#g" ./otel.yml && \
        sed -i '' "s#\${env:ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT}#${ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT}#g" ./otel.yml && \
        sed -i '' "s#\${env:ELASTIC_API_KEY}#${ELASTIC_API_KEY}#g" ./otel.yml
        ```
      </tab-item>

      <tab-item title="Windows">
        ```powershell
        Remove-Item -Path .\otel.yml -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        Copy-Item .\otel_samples\managed_otlp\logs_metrics_traces.yml .\otel.yml
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path .\data\otelcol | Out-Null

        $content = Get-Content .\otel.yml
        $content = $content -replace '\${env:STORAGE_DIR}', "$PWD\data\otelcol"
        $content = $content -replace '\${env:ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT}', "<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT>"
        $content = $content -replace '\${env:ELASTIC_API_KEY}', "<ELASTIC_API_KEY>"
        $content | Set-Content .\otel.yml
        ```
      </tab-item>
    </tab-set>
  </step>

  <step title="Run the EDOT Collector">
    Run the following command to run the EDOT Collector.
    <tab-set>
      <tab-item title="Linux and macOS">
        ```bash
        sudo ./otelcol --config otel.yml
        ```
      </tab-item>

      <tab-item title="Windows">
        ```powershell
        .\elastic-agent.exe otel --config otel.yml
        ```
      </tab-item>
    </tab-set>

    <note>
      The Collector opens ports `4317` and `4318` to receive application data from locally running OTel SDKs without authentication. This allows the SDKs to send data without any further configuration needed as they use this endpoint by default.
    </note>
  </step>

  <step title="(Optional) Instrument your applications">
    To collect telemetry from applications and use the EDOT Collector as a gateway,
    instrument your target applications following the setup instructions:
    - [Android](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/android)
    - [.NET](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/dotnet/setup)
    - [iOS](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/ios)
    - [Java](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/java/setup)
    - [Node.js](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/node/setup)
    - [PHP](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/php/setup)
    - [Python](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3306/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks/python/setup)
    Configure your SDKs to send the data to the local EDOT Collector using OTLP/gRPC (`http://localhost:4317`) or OTLP/HTTP (`http://localhost:4318`).
  </step>

  <step title="Explore your data">
    Go to Kibana and select **Dashboards** to explore your newly collected data.
  </step>
</stepper>


## Troubleshooting

The following issues might occur.

### API Key prefix not found

The following error is due to an improperly formatted API key:
```txt
Exporting failed. Dropping data.
{"kind": "exporter", "data_type": }
"Unauthenticated desc = ApiKey prefix not found"
```

Format your API key as `"Authorization": "ApiKey <api-key-value-here>"` or `"Authorization=ApiKey <api-key>"` depending on whether you're using a Collector or SDK.

### Error: too many requests

The managed endpoint has per-project rate limits in place. If you reach this limit, contact our [support team](https://support.elastic.co).