Skip to content

Viewing Traces in Jaeger

Once you've started the gateway with the tracing profile, follow these steps to view distributed traces:

Step 1: Access Jaeger UI

Open your browser and navigate to: 

http://localhost:16686

Step 2: Search for Traces

The Jaeger UI provides several ways to search for traces:

  1. Select a Service from the dropdown:
  2. policy-engine - View traces from the policy engine

  3. router - View traces from the Envoy router

  4. Select an Operation (optional):

  5. Choose "all" to see all operations

  6. Or select a specific operation (e.g., specific policy execution)

  7. Adjust Lookback Time Range:

  8. Default: Last 1 hour

  9. Options: 5m, 15m, 1h, 6h, 12h, 1d, 2d, Custom

  10. Add Filters (optional):

  11. Tags: Filter by specific tag values (e.g., http.status_code=500)
  12. Min/Max Duration: Filter by trace duration

  13. Limit Results: Control number of traces returned (default: 20)

  14. Click Find Traces

Step 3: Analyze Trace Details

Click on any trace in the results to view detailed information:

Trace Timeline

  • Visual timeline showing all spans in the trace
  • Duration bars showing relative time spent in each operation
  • Parent-child relationships between spans
  • Color coding by service

Span Details

Click on any span to see: - Operation name: What operation was performed - Duration: How long it took - Tags: Metadata about the operation (HTTP method, status code, etc.) - Logs: Events logged during the span (errors, warnings, etc.) - Process: Service name, version, and host information

Common Use Cases

Finding Slow Requests: 1. Set Min Duration filter (e.g., 1000ms) 2. Click Find Traces 3. Examine spans to identify bottlenecks

Debugging Errors: 1. Filter by tag: error=true or http.status_code=500 2. Click on error traces 3. Examine span logs and tags for error details

Understanding Request Flow: 1. Search for a specific trace ID (from logs or headers) 2. View the complete request path through all components 3. Identify which component handled which part of the request

Step 4: Trace Comparison

You can compare multiple traces to identify patterns: 1. Select multiple traces using checkboxes 2. Click Compare Traces button 3. View side-by-side comparison of trace structure and timings

Step 5: Service Dependency Graph

View how services interact: 1. Click Dependencies in the top navigation 2. Select time range 3. View graph showing service-to-service communication patterns