Datadog Heroku Buildpack

This Heroku buildpack installs the Datadog Agent in your Heroku dyno to collect system metrics, custom application metrics, and traces. To collect custom application metrics or traces, include the language appropriate DogStatsD or Datadog APM library in your application.

Installation

This guide assumes that you already have your application running on Heroku. See the Heroku documentation to learn how to deploy your application to Heroku.

1. Go to Datadog API settings and copy your Datadog API key. Export it to an environment variable:

export DD_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>

2. Export your application name to the APPNAME environment variable:

export APPNAME=<YOUR_HEROKU_APP_NAME>

3. Add the Datadog buildpack to your project:

cd <HEROKU_PROJECT_ROOT_FOLDER>

# Use the latest major Agent version
heroku config:add DD_AGENT_MAJOR_VERSION=7

# Enable Heroku Labs Dyno Metadata to set HEROKU_APP_NAME env variable automatically
heroku labs:enable runtime-dyno-metadata -a $APPNAME

# Set hostname in Datadog as appname.dynotype.dynonumber for metrics continuity
heroku config:add DD_DYNO_HOST=true

# Add this buildpack and set your Datadog API key
heroku buildpacks:add --index 1 https://github.com/DataDog/heroku-buildpack-datadog.git
heroku config:add DD_API_KEY=$DD_API_KEY

# Deploy to Heroku forcing a rebuild
git commit --allow-empty -m "Rebuild slug"
git push heroku main

Once complete, the Datadog Agent is started automatically when each dyno starts.

The Datadog Agent provides a listening port on 8125 for statsd/dogstatsd metrics and events. Traces are collected on port 8126.

Order of buildpacks

As explained in the Heroku documentation under Viewing buildpacks, the last buildpack in the list is used to determine the process type for the application.

Buildpacks that install apt packages, such as heroku-buildpack-apt, puppeteer-heroku-buildpack, or buildpacks that modify the /app folder, such as heroku-buildpack-monorepo, need to be added before the Datadog buildpack. For example, if your application uses the ruby, datadog and apt buildpacks, this would be a correct heroku buildpacks output:

1. https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-apt.git
2. https://github.com/DataDog/heroku-buildpack-datadog.git
3. heroku/ruby

Pinning a specific buildpack version and a specific Datadog Agent version

Heroku recommends to always use the latest commit of a buildpack. If you need to pin the buildpack version, you can do so by specifying the buildpack release tag:

heroku buildpacks:add --index 1 https://github.com/DataDog/heroku-buildpack-datadog.git#<DATADOG_BUILDPACK_RELEASE>

Replace <DATADOG_BUILDPACK_RELEASE> with the Buildpack release you want to use.

By default, the buildpack pins the latest version of the Datadog Agent at the time of release. You can pin the Agent to an earlier version by setting the DD_AGENT_VERSION environment variable.

Upgrading and slug recompilation

Upgrading this buildpack or modifying certain buildpack options requires you to recompile your slug.

The following options require a slug recompilation:

• DD_AGENT_VERSION
• DD_AGENT_MAJOR_VERSION
• DD_PYTHON_VERSION
• DD_APM_ENABLED
• DD_PROCESS_AGENT

To upgrade this buildpack and/or to change any of these options, for example DD_AGENT_VERSION, the following steps are required:

# Set new version of the Agent
heroku config:set DD_AGENT_VERSION=<NEW_AGENT_VERSION> -a <YOUR_APP_NAME>

# Rebuild your slug with the new Agent version:
git commit --allow-empty -m "Rebuild slug"
git push heroku main

Configuration

In addition to the environment variables shown above, there are several others you can set:

Setting	Description
DD_API_KEY	Required. Your API key is available from the Organization Settings -> API Keys page. Note: This is the API key, not the application key.
DD_HOSTNAME	Optional. WARNING: Setting the hostname manually may result in metrics continuity errors. It is recommended that you do not set this variable. Because dyno hosts are ephemeral it is recommended that you monitor based on the tags dynoname or appname.
DD_DYNO_HOST	Optional. Set to true to use the dyno name, such as web.1 or run.1234, as the hostname. See the hostname section below for more information. Defaults to false
DD_TAGS	Optional. Sets additional tags provided as a space-separated string (Note: comma-separated string in buildpack versions 1.16 and earlier; this is still supported to maintain backward compatibility). For example, heroku config:set DD_TAGS="simple-tag-0 tag-key-1:tag-value-1". The buildpack automatically adds the tags dyno which represent the dyno name, such as web.1, and dynotype (the type of dyno, e.g run or web). See the Guide to tagging for more information.
DD_VERSION	Optional. Sets the version of your application, used to organize traces by version.
DD_HISTOGRAM_PERCENTILES	Optional. Optionally set additional percentiles for your histogram metrics. See How to graph percentiles.
DISABLE_DATADOG_AGENT	Optional. When set, the Datadog Agent does not run.
DD_APM_ENABLED	Optional. Trace collection is enabled by default. Set this to false to disable trace collection. Changing this option requires recompilation of the slug. Check the upgrading and slug recompilation section for details.
DD_PROCESS_AGENT	Optional. The Datadog Process Agent is disabled by default. Set this to true to enable the Process Agent. Changing this option requires recompilation of the slug. Check the upgrading and slug recompilation section for details.
DD_SITE	Optional. If you use the app.datadoghq.eu service, set this to datadoghq.eu. Defaults to datadoghq.com.
DD_AGENT_VERSION	Optional. By default, the buildpack installs the latest 6.x version of the Datadog Agent available in the package repository. Use this variable to install older versions of the Datadog Agent. Note: Not all versions of the Agent may be available. This option takes precedence over DD_AGENT_MAJOR_VERSION. Changing this option requires recompiling the slug. See upgrading and slug recompilation for details.
DD_AGENT_MAJOR_VERSION	Optional. By default, the buildpack installs the latest 6.x version of the Datadog Agent available in the package repository. Set this variable to 7 to install the latest 7.x version of the Datadog Agent. Setting this variable to 7 is highly recommended. Check the Python versions section for more information on the relation of the Agent version and Python version. Changing this option requires recompiling the slug. See upgrading and slug recompilation for details.
DD_DISABLE_HOST_METRICS	Optional. By default, the buildpack reports system metrics for the host machine running the dyno. Set this to true to disable system metrics collection. See the system metrics section below for more information.
DD_PYTHON_VERSION	Optional. Starting with version 6.14.0, Datadog Agent ships with Python versions 2 and 3. The buildpack only keeps one of the versions. Set this to 2 or 3 to select the Python version you want the Agent to keep. If not set, the buildpack keeps 2. Check the Python versions section for more information. Changing this option requires recompiling the slug. Check the upgrading and slug recompilation section for details.
DD_HEROKU_CONF_FOLDER	Optional. By default, the buildpack looks in the root of your application for a folder /datadog for any configuration files you wish to include, see prerun.sh script. This location can be overridden by setting this to your desired path.

For additional documentation, see the Datadog Agent documentation.

Hostname

Heroku dynos are ephemeral—they can move to different host machines whenever new code is deployed, configuration changes are made, or resource needs/availability changes. This makes Heroku flexible and responsive, but can potentially lead to a high number of reported hosts in Datadog. Datadog bills on a per-host basis, and the buildpack default is to report actual hosts, which can lead to higher than expected costs.

Depending on your use case, you may want to set your hostname so that hosts are aggregated and report a lower number. To do this, Set DD_DYNO_HOST to true. This causes the Agent to report the hostname as the app and dyno name (for example appname.web.1 or appname.run.1234) and your host count closely matches your dyno usage. One drawback is that you may see some metrics continuity errors whenever a dyno is cycled.

For this to work correctly, HEROKU_APP_NAME needs to be set. The easiest way to do this is by enabling dyno metadata. Note: Dyno metadata is not yet available in Private Spaces, in which case you need to set HEROKU_APP_NAME manually.

Disabling the Datadog Agent for short-lived dynos

By default, the Datadog Agent runs on each of the dynos that are part of the application. This includes scheduler, release or run dynos. In many cases the metrics from these dynos are not needed and it makes sense to disable the Datadog Agent for those.

To disable the Datadog Agent based on dyno type, add the following snippet to your prerun.sh script (adapting it to the type of dynos you don't want to monitor):

# Disable the Datadog Agent based on dyno type
if [ "$DYNOTYPE" == "run" ] || [ "$DYNOTYPE" == "scheduler" ] || [ "$DYNOTYPE" == "release" ]; then
  DISABLE_DATADOG_AGENT="true"
fi

System metrics

By default, the buildpack collects system metrics for the host machine running your dyno. System metrics are not available for individual dynos using this buildpack. To disable host system metrics collection, set the DD_DISABLE_HOST_METRICS environment variable to true.

In order to collect system metrics for your dynos, you must:

1. Enable the Heroku Labs: log-runtime-metrics.
2. Use the Datadog log drain to collect metric logs from the Heroku Logplex and forward them to Datadog.
3. Generate log-based metric over the collected logs.

File locations

• The Datadog Agent is installed at /app/.apt/opt/datadog-agent
• The Datadog Agent configuration files are at /app/.apt/etc/datadog-agent
• The Datadog Agent logs are at /app/.apt/var/log/datadog

Enabling integrations

To enable a Datadog-<INTEGRATION_NAME> integration, create a file in the datadog configuration folder within your application. During the dyno start up, your YAML files are copied to the appropriate Datadog Agent configuration directories.

For example, to enable the Datadog-Redis integration, add the file /datadog/conf.d/redisdb.yaml at the root of your application (or /$DD_HEROKU_CONF_FOLDER/conf.d/redisdb.yaml if you have changed this configuration option):

init_config:

instances:

    ## @param host - string - required
    ## Enter the host to connect to.
    #
  - host: <REDIS_HOST>

    ## @param port - integer - required
    ## Enter the port of the host to connect to.
    #
    port: 6379

Note: See the sample redisdb.d/conf.yaml for all available configuration options.

Community Integrations

If the integration you are enabling is part of the Community Integrations, install the package as part of the prerun script.

agent-wrapper integration install -t datadog-<INTEGRATION_NAME>==<INTEGRATION_VERSION>

For example, to install the ping integration, create the configuration file datadog/conf.d/ping.yaml and add the following line to your prerun script:

agent-wrapper integration install -t datadog-ping==1.0.0

Disabling integrations based on dynos

As the filesystem in a Heroku application will be shared by all dynos, if you enable an integration, it will be run on every dyno, including run or worker dynos. If you want to limit the integration runs based on dyno name or type, you can do that adding a small snippet to the prerun script.

For example, if the Gunicorn integration only needs to run on web type dynos, add the following to your prerun script:

if [ "$DYNOTYPE" != "web" ]; then
  rm -f "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/gunicorn.d/conf.yaml"
fi

Enabling custom checks

To enable your own Agent Custom Checks, create a checks.d folder in the datadog configuration folder within your application. Under it, copy all .py and .yaml files from your custom checks. During the dyno start up, your files are copied to the appropriate Datadog Agent configuration directories.

For example, if you have two custom checks, foo and bar, this would be the right folder tree:

.
└── app
    └── datadog
        └── checks.d
            ├── foo.py
            ├── foo.yaml
            ├── bar.py
            └── bar.yaml

Prerun script

In addition to all of the configurations above, you can include a prerun script, /datadog/prerun.sh, in your application. The prerun script runs after all of the standard configuration actions and immediately before starting the Datadog Agent. This allows you to modify the environment variables (for example: DD_TAGS or DD_VERSION), perform additional configurations, install community integrations, or even disable the Datadog Agent programmatically.

The example below demonstrates a few of the things you can do in the prerun.sh script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Disable the Datadog Agent based on dyno type
if [ "$DYNOTYPE" == "run" ]; then
  DISABLE_DATADOG_AGENT="true"
fi

# Disable integrations based on dyno type
if [ "$DYNOTYPE" != "web" ]; then
  rm -f "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/gunicorn.d/conf.yaml"
fi

# Set app version based on HEROKU_SLUG_COMMIT
if [ -n "$HEROKU_SLUG_COMMIT" ]; then
  DD_VERSION=$HEROKU_SLUG_COMMIT
fi

# Update the Postgres configuration from above using the Heroku application environment variable
if [ -n "$DATABASE_URL" ]; then
  POSTGREGEX='^postgres://([^:]+):([^@]+)@([^:]+):([^/]+)/(.*)$'
  if [[ $DATABASE_URL =~ $POSTGREGEX ]]; then
    sed -i "s/<YOUR HOSTNAME>/${BASH_REMATCH[3]}/" "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml"
    sed -i "s/<YOUR USERNAME>/${BASH_REMATCH[1]}/" "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml"
    sed -i "s/<YOUR PASSWORD>/${BASH_REMATCH[2]}/" "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml"
    sed -i "s/<YOUR PORT>/${BASH_REMATCH[4]}/" "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml"
    sed -i "s/<YOUR DBNAME>/${BASH_REMATCH[5]}/" "$DD_CONF_DIR/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml"
  fi
fi

# Install the "ping" community integration
agent-wrapper integration install -t datadog-ping==1.0.0

Limiting Datadog's console output

In some cases, you may want to limit the amount of logs the Datadog buildpack is writing to the console.

To limit the log output of the buildpack, set the DD_LOG_LEVEL environment variable to one of the following: TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, CRITICAL, OFF.

heroku config:add DD_LOG_LEVEL=ERROR

Optional binaries

To save slug space, the trace-agent and process-agent optional binaries are removed during compilation if DD_APM_ENABLED is set to false, and/or DD_PROCESS_AGENT is not set or set to false.

To reduce your slug size, make sure that DD_APM_ENABLED is set to false, if you are not using APM features; and DD_PROCESS_AGENT is not set to true, if you are not using process monitoring.

Debugging

To run any of the information or debugging commands, use the agent-wrapper command.

For example, to display the status of your Datadog Agent and enabled integrations, run:

agent-wrapper status

Python and Agent versions

Prior to version 6.14 the Datadog v6 Agent shipped with Python version 2 embedded. Starting with 6.14, and in preparation for Python version 2 End Of Life, announced for January 2020, the Datadog v6 Agent ships with both Python versions 2 and 3, to give customers enough time to migrate their custom checks to Python version 3. The Heroku buildpack only keeps one of the versions. Set DD_PYTHON_VERSION to 2 or 3 to select the Python version you want the Agent to keep. If not set, the buildpack keeps Python version 2. If you are using custom checks that only work with Python version 2, migrate them to version 3 before its EOL.

Agent v7 only ships with Python version 3. If you are not using custom checks or your custom checks are already migrated to version 3, move to Agent v7 as soon as possible. Starting with 6.15, v7 releases with the same minor version share the same feature set, making it safe to move between those two. For example, if you are running 6.16 and you don't need Python version 2, it is safe to jump to 7.16.

Heroku log collection

The Datadog buildpack does not collect logs from the Heroku platform. To set up Heroku log collection, see the dedicated guide.

Using Heroku with Docker images

This buildpack only works for Heroku deployments that use Heroku's Slug Compiler. If you are deploying your application in Heroku using Docker containers:

1. Add the Datadog Agent as part of your Docker image and start the Agent as a different process in your container.
2. Set the following configuration option in your Heroku application, to ensure that Datadog reports it correctly as a Heroku dyno:

heroku config:add DD_HEROKU_DYNO=true

As an example, if you are building your Docker image using a Debian based OS, add the following lines to your Dockerfile:

# Install GPG dependencies
RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y gnupg apt-transport-https gpg-agent curl ca-certificates

# Add Datadog repository and signing keys
ENV DATADOG_APT_KEYRING="/usr/share/keyrings/datadog-archive-keyring.gpg"
ENV DATADOG_APT_KEYS_URL="https://keys.datadoghq.com"
RUN sh -c "echo 'deb [signed-by=${DATADOG_APT_KEYRING}] https://apt.datadoghq.com/ stable 7' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/datadog.list"
RUN touch ${DATADOG_APT_KEYRING}
RUN curl -o /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_CURRENT.public "${DATADOG_APT_KEYS_URL}/DATADOG_APT_KEY_CURRENT.public" && \
    gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-default-keyring --keyring ${DATADOG_APT_KEYRING} --import /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_CURRENT.public
RUN curl -o /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_F14F620E.public "${DATADOG_APT_KEYS_URL}/DATADOG_APT_KEY_F14F620E.public" && \
    gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-default-keyring --keyring ${DATADOG_APT_KEYRING} --import /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_F14F620E.public
RUN curl -o /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_382E94DE.public "${DATADOG_APT_KEYS_URL}/DATADOG_APT_KEY_382E94DE.public" && \
    gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-default-keyring --keyring ${DATADOG_APT_KEYRING} --import /tmp/DATADOG_APT_KEY_382E94DE.public


# Install the Datadog Agent
RUN apt-get update && apt-get -y --force-yes install --reinstall datadog-agent

# Copy entrypoint
COPY entrypoint.sh /

# Expose DogStatsD and trace-agent ports
EXPOSE 8125/udp 8126/tcp

# Copy your Datadog configuration
COPY datadog-config/ /etc/datadog-agent/

CMD ["/entrypoint.sh"]

In your Docker container entry point, start the Datadog Agent, Datadog APM Agent, and Datadog Process Agent:

#!/bin/bash

datadog-agent run &
/opt/datadog-agent/embedded/bin/trace-agent --config=/etc/datadog-agent/datadog.yaml &
/opt/datadog-agent/embedded/bin/process-agent --config=/etc/datadog-agent/datadog.yaml

For more advanced options in the Docker image, reference the Datadog Agent Docker files.

Contributing

See the contributing guidelines to learn how to open an issue or PR to the Heroku-buildpack-datadog repository.

History

Earlier versions of this project were forked from the miketheman heroku-buildpack-datadog project. It was largely rewritten for Datadog's Agent version 6. Changes and more information can be found in the changelog.

Troubleshooting

Getting the Agent status

If you have set up the buildpack and you are not getting some of the data you expect in Datadog, you can run the status command for the Datadog Agent to help you find the cause.

# Export the name of your Heroku application as an environment variable
export APPNAME=your-application-name

heroku ps:exec -a $APPNAME

# Establishing credentials... done
# Connecting to web.1 on ⬢ ruby-heroku-datadog...
# DD_API_KEY environment variable not set. Run: heroku config:add DD_API_KEY=<your API key>
# The Datadog Agent has been disabled. Unset the DISABLE_DATADOG_AGENT or set missing environment variables.

~ $

You can ignore the warnings about DD_API_KEY not being set. While Heroku doesn't set configuration variables for the SSH session itself, the Datadog Agent process is able to access them.

Once inside the SSH session, execute the Datadog status command.

~ $ agent-wrapper status

Getting the status from the agent.

===============
Agent (v7.27.0)
===============

[...]

Debugging

No data in Datadog

Make sure that the status command runs correctly and that this section of the output tells you that your API key is valid:

  API Keys status
  ===============
    API key ending with 68306: API Key valid

Check integrations

To check if the integration you have enabled is running correctly, focus on the Collector section and verify that your check is running correctly:

=========
Collector
=========

  Running Checks
  ==============

[...]
    postgres (5.4.0)
    ----------------
      Instance ID: postgres:e07ef94b907fe733 [OK]
      Configuration Source: file:/app/.apt/etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/postgres.d/conf.yaml
      Total Runs: 4,282
      Metric Samples: Last Run: 15, Total: 64,230
      Events: Last Run: 0, Total: 0
      Service Checks: Last Run: 1, Total: 4,282
      Average Execution Time : 43ms
      Last Execution Date : 2021-05-13 08:15:46 UTC (1620893746000)
      Last Successful Execution Date : 2021-05-13 08:15:46 UTC (1620893746000)
      metadata:
        version.major: 13
        version.minor: 2
        version.patch: 0
        version.raw: 13.2 (Ubuntu 13.2-1.pgdg20.04+1)
        version.scheme: semver

Check APM agent

If you have instrumented your application for APM and are not getting traces in Datadog, you can check that the APM Agent is running correctly and collecting traces:

[...]
=========
APM Agent
=========
  Status: Running
  Pid: 63
  Uptime: 64702 seconds
  Mem alloc: 10,331,128 bytes
  Hostname: ruby-heroku-datadog.web.1
  Receiver: localhost:8126
  Endpoints:
    https://trace.agent.datadoghq.com

  Receiver (previous minute)
  ==========================
    From ruby 2.6.6 (ruby-x86_64-linux), client 0.48.0
      Traces received: 11 (14,181 bytes)
      Spans received: 33

    Default priority sampling rate: 100.0%
    Priority sampling rate for 'service:ruby-heroku-datadog,env:': 100.0%
    Priority sampling rate for 'service:ruby-heroku-datadog,env:development': 100.0%

[...]

Datadog is reporting a higher number of Agents than dynos

Make sure you have DD_DYNO_HOST set to true and that HEROKU_APP_NAME has a value set for every Heroku application. See the Hostname section for details.

After upgrading the buildpack or the Agent, the Agent is reporting errors when starting up

After an upgrade of the buildpack or Agent, you must recompile your application's slug. Check the upgrading and slug recompilation section for details.