Custom Export

Since every operator runs a local OTel Collector, adding your own telemetry backends is straightforward. You can dual-export to both the Fermah Gateway and your own OTLP-compatible destinations such as Grafana Alloy, Prometheus, or any other collector.

All telemetry is exported through gRPC OTLP: metrics and traces.

Adding a Custom Exporter

Add a second exporter to your otel-collector.yml alongside the existing Fermah gateway exporter. This example routes telemetry to a Grafana Alloy instance running on the same Docker network:


exporters:
  otlp_grpc:
    endpoint: "${FERMAH_GATEWAY_ENDPOINT}"
    headers:
      authorization: "Bearer ${FERMAH_OTEL_TOKEN}"
    tls:
      insecure: true
    sending_queue:
      enabled: true
      queue_size: 1000
    retry_on_failure:
      enabled: true
 
  otlp/custom:
    endpoint: alloy:4317
    tls:
      insecure: true

Then add your custom exporter to the pipeline outputs:


service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter, resourcedetection, resource/operator_host, batch]
      exporters: [datadog/connector, otlp_grpc, otlp/custom]
    metrics:
      receivers: [datadog/connector, otlp, hostmetrics, prometheus]
      processors: [memory_limiter, resourcedetection, resource/operator_host, batch]
      exporters: [otlp_grpc, otlp/custom]

Restart the collector after modifying the configuration:


sudo docker compose -p fermah-telemetry restart

Grafana Alloy Example

To run Grafana Alloy as a custom backend, add it to the same fermah-net Docker network:


services:
  alloy:
    image: grafana/alloy:latest
    ports:
      - "12345:12345"
    volumes:
      - ./config.alloy:/etc/alloy/config.alloy
    command: run --server.http.listen-addr=0.0.0.0:12345 --storage.path=/var/lib/alloy/data /etc/alloy/config.alloy
    environment:
      - GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY=${GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY}
    networks:
      - fermah-net
    restart: unless-stopped
 
networks:
  fermah-net:
    external: true

The Alloy config specifies export endpoints for Prometheus (metrics) and Tempo (traces). Customize the endpoints and credentials for your environment.

If using local receivers, refer to the official Alloy configuration reference .

Standalone Export

To disable forwarding to the Fermah Gateway entirely and only export to your own backend, replace the otlp_grpc exporter with your own and remove it from the pipelines.

Disabling Fermah Gateway forwarding means the Fermah team will not have visibility into your node’s telemetry. This may affect our ability to provide support.