Quickstart for Docker on self-managed deployments

Create the config file

Create the otel-collector-config.yml file with your Elastic Agent configuration. Refer to the configuration reference.

Retrieve your settings

Retrieve your Elasticsearch endpoint and API key.

Create the .env file

Create an .env file with the following content. Replace the placeholder values with your Elastic Cloud credentials:

HOST_FILESYSTEM=/
DOCKER_SOCK=/var/run/docker.sock
ELASTIC_AGENT_OTEL=true
COLLECTOR_CONTRIB_IMAGE=elastic/elastic-agent:9.4.3
ELASTIC_API_KEY=<your_api_key_here>
ELASTIC_ENDPOINT=<your_endpoint_here>
OTEL_COLLECTOR_CONFIG=/path/to/otel-collector-config.yml
		

Create the compose file

Create a compose.yml file with the following content:

services:
  otel-collector:
    image: ${COLLECTOR_CONTRIB_IMAGE}
    container_name: otel-collector
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 1.5G
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: ["--config", "/etc/otelcol-config.yml" ]
    network_mode: host
    user: 0:0
    volumes:
      - ${HOST_FILESYSTEM}:/hostfs:ro
      - ${DOCKER_SOCK}:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ${OTEL_COLLECTOR_CONFIG}:/etc/otelcol-config.yml
    environment:
      - HOST_FILESYSTEM
      - ELASTIC_AGENT_OTEL
      - ELASTIC_API_KEY
      - ELASTIC_ENDPOINT
      - STORAGE_DIR=/usr/share/elastic-agent
		

Start the Collector

Start the Collector by running the following command:

docker compose up -d
		

(Optional) Instrument your applications

To collect telemetry from applications and use the Elastic Agent as a gateway, instrument your target applications following the setup instructions:

• Android
• .NET
• iOS
• Java
• Node.js
• PHP
• Python

Configure your SDKs to send the data to the local Elastic Agent using OTLP/gRPC (http://localhost:4317) or OTLP/HTTP (http://localhost:4318).

Install the content packs

Install the System OpenTelemetry Assets integration and the Docker OpenTelemetry Assets integration in Kibana.

Explore your data

Go to Kibana and select Dashboards to explore your newly collected data.