Environment variables

For various environment variables that are used in optionally configuring the major Instana components, see the following information.

Environment variables for host agent

Table 1: Environment variables for host agent
Environment variable	Required	Default value	Description
`INSTANA_AGENT_KEY`	Yes	N/A	Your Instana agent key.
`INSTANA_AGENT_ENDPOINT`	Yes	N/A	The host agent endpoint.
`INSTANA_AGENT_ENDPOINT_PORT`	Yes	N/A	The host agent endpoint port.
`INSTANA_AGENT_ZONE`	No	N/A	The zone to place the host agent.
`INSTANA_AGENT_TAGS`	No	N/A	Comma-separated list of tags that are associated with the host that runs the agent, such as `my_tag=myvalue,my_other_tag`.
`INSTANA_AGENT_MODE`	No	APM	The agent mode. Available values are `APM`, `INFRASTRUCTURE`, `AWS`, or `OFF`.
`INSTANA_DOWNLOAD_KEY`	No	N/A	Your Instana download key.
`INSTANA_AGENT_UPDATES_VERSION`	No	N/A	Pins the sensor versions to a specific SHA.
`INSTANA_AGENT_UPDATES_FREQUENCY`	No	DAY	Controls the frequency at which sensor updates are fetched. For more information, see Updates and version pinning.
`INSTANA_AGENT_UPDATES_TIME`	No	04:30	Controls the time at which sensor updates are fetched. For more information, see Updates and version pinning.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_HOST`	No	N/A	The hostname/address of a proxy.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_PORT`	No	N/A	The port of a proxy.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_PROTOCOL`	No	N/A	The proxy protocol, such as `http`.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_USER`	No	N/A	The username of the proxy auth.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_PASSWORD`	No	N/A	The password of the proxy auth.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PROXY_USE_DNS`	No	false	Boolean if the proxy also uses DNS.
`INSTANA_GIT_REMOTE_REPOSITORY`	No	N/A	Git remote URL to be used by the host agent for Git-based configuration management. The variable must be set if `INSTANA_GIT_REMOTE_BRANCH` is set.
`INSTANA_GIT_REMOTE_BRANCH`	No	N/A	Git remote branch to be tracked by the host agent for Git-based configuration management. The variable must be set if `INSTANA_GIT_REMOTE_REPOSITORY` is set.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_ENABLED`	No	N/A	Enables overriding proxy settings specifically for sensor updates.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_HOST`	No	N/A	The hostname/address of a proxy for the Maven sensors repository.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_PORT`	No	N/A	The port of a proxy for the Maven sensors repository.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_PROTOCOL`	No	N/A	The proxy protocol for the Maven sensors repository.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_USER`	No	N/A	The username of the proxy auth for the Maven sensors repository.
`INSTANA_REPOSITORY_PROXY_PASSWORD`	No	N/A	The password of the proxy auth for the Maven sensors repository.
`INSTANA_MVN_REPOSITORY_URL`	No	N/A	The host name of the Maven repository for dynamic agent and sensor bundle downloads. For more information, see Configuring agent repository mirror.
`INSTANA_MVN_REPOSITORY_FEATURES_PATH`	No	N/A	The Maven repository path for feature updates. For more information, see Configuring agent repository mirror.
`INSTANA_MVN_REPOSITORY_SHARED_PATH`	No	N/A	The Maven repository path for agent and sensor bundle updates. For more information, see Configuring agent repository mirror.
`INSTANA_LOG_LEVEL`	No	INFO	`INFO`, `DEBUG`, `TRACE`, `WARN`, `ERROR`, or `OFF`.
`AGENT_RELEASE_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_URL`	No	N/A	The URL of the agent release repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`AGENT_RELEASE_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_USERNAME`	No	N/A	The username to access the agent release repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`AGENT_RELEASE_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_PASSWORD`	No	N/A	The password to access the agent release repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`INSTANA_SHARED_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_URL`	No	N/A	The URL of the shared repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`INSTANA_SHARED_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_USERNAME`	No	N/A	The username to access the shared repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`INSTANA_SHARED_REPOSITORY_MIRROR_PASSWORD`	No	N/A	The password to access the agent features repository mirror. For more information, see Configuring the agent repository as the mirror.
`JAVA_OPTS`		N/A	Additional Java® virtual machine configurations that you might want to pass to the startup of the host agent. For example, you might use `-Xms<value>` and `-Xmx<value>` to set the minimum and maximum amount of heap available to the agent, respectively.
`ENABLE_AGENT_SOCKET`		N/A	The variable to determine the Instana agent's communication direction with JVMs. To allow communication to be directed to the agent, set this variable to `true`. To direct communication to the JVM, set this variable to `false`. The default value is `true`.
`INSTANA_AGENT_TLS_1_0`			Enable TLS v1.0. Default: `false`
`INSTANA_AGENT_TLS_1_1`			Enable TLS v1.1. Default: `false`
`INSTANA_JVM_BYTEBUDDY_ATTACHMENT_ENABLED`	No	`true`	This variable enables or disables JVM attachment by using bytebuddy.
`INSTANA_AGENT_OTEL_GRPC`	No	`false`	Enable OTEL GRPC-server.
`INSTANA_AGENT_OTEL_HTTP`	No	`false`	Enable OTEL HTTP-server.
`INSTANA_AGENT_OTEL_GRPC_PORT`	No	`4317`	Override OTEL GRPC-port number.
`INSTANA_AGENT_OTEL_HTTP_PORT`	No	`4318`	Override OTEL HTTP-port number.

For more information, see the agent configuration docs and agent git-based configuration docs.

Environment variables for serverless monitoring

Table 2: Environment variables for serverless monitoring
Environment Variable	Value	Description
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_URL`	String	The Instana backend endpoint that your serverless agents connect to. It depends on your region and is different from the host agent backend endpoint. It starts with `https://serverless-`.
`INSTANA_AGENT_KEY`	String	Your Instana Agent key. The same agent key can be used for host agents and serverless monitoring.
`INSTANA_TIMEOUT`	Integer	Timeout in milliseconds for the HTTP requests reporting data to the Instana backend.
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_PROXY`	URL	Set this variable to `http://my-proxy.tld` or `http://user:password@my-proxy.tld` to route the reporting of data to the Instana backend over an HTTP(S) proxy.
`INSTANA_EXTRA_HTTP_HEADERS`	String, semicolon-separated	Semicolon-separated list of HTTP headers to be captured.
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	String	Custom service name.
`INSTANA_LOG_LEVEL`	`debug`, `info`, `warn`, or `error`	The log level for the Instana package. By default it's `info`.
`INSTANA_LOG_SPANS`	`true` or `false`	Set this variable to `true` to have the spans that are generated by the Instana instrumentation, which is dumped to standard out. This setting is useful to debug SDK and automatic instrumentation issues.
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	String	Set this variable to any value to set the log level to `debug`.
`INSTANA_DISABLE_CA_CHECK`	`true` or `false`	Set this variable to `true` to disable verifying the server certificate against the list of CAs baked into the Lambda runtime when it connects to the Instana backend. Enabling this feature makes your lambda vulnerable to MITM attacks for this connection. Use this setting only if you use Instana self-hosted and are unable to operate the Instana backend with a certificate with a known root CA.
`INSTANA_SECRETS`	String	The value must be structured as follows, `<matcher>:<secret>[,<secret>]`, for example: `contains-ignore-case:key,password,secret`. See the Secrets documentation for details of the matchers.
`INSTANA_TAGS`	String, comma-separated	A list of tags, which are comma-separated, and associated with the monitored component, for example `my_tag=myvalue,my_other_tag`.
`INSTANA_ZONE`	String	The zone to place this monitored component into.
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	`true` or `false`	Set this variable to `true` to disable opentelemetry integration. The default value is `false`.
`INSTANA_STACK_TRACE_LENGTH`	Integer	Set this variable to limit the number of captured stack trace frames in a span.

AWS Lambda support

Table 3: Environment variables for AWS Lambda
Environment Variable	Go	Java	Node.js	Python
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_URL`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_AGENT_KEY`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TIMEOUT`	✅	❌	✅	✅
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_PROXY`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_EXTRA_HTTP_HEADERS`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_LEVEL`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_SPANS`	❌	✅	❌	❌
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_CA_CHECK`	❌	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SECRETS`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TAGS`	❌	✅	❌	❌
`INSTANA_ZONE`	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SSM_PARAM_NAME`	❌	❌	✅	❌
`INSTANA_SSM_DECRYPTION`	❌	❌	✅	❌
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	❌	❌	✅	❌

AWS Fargate support

Table 4: Environment variables for AWS Fargate
Environment Variable	.NET Core	Go	Java	Node.js	Python
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_URL`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_AGENT_KEY`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TIMEOUT`	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_PROXY`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_EXTRA_HTTP_HEADERS`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_LEVEL`	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_SPANS`	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_CA_CHECK`	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SECRETS`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TAGS`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_ZONE`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌

Google Cloud Run support

Table 5: Environment variables for Google Cloud Run
Environment Variable	Go	Node.js
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_URL`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_AGENT_KEY`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TIMEOUT`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_ENDPOINT_PROXY`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_EXTRA_HTTP_HEADERS`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_LEVEL`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_LOG_SPANS`	❌	❌
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_CA_CHECK`	❌	✅
`INSTANA_SECRETS`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_TAGS`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_ZONE`	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	❌	✅

Environment variables for dynamic language sensors

The Dynamic Language Sensors offered by Instana respect a common set of environment variables. The following table describes this common set.

For more information on Java, Scala, .NET, .NET Core, or PHP, see the corresponding documentation pages.

Table 6: Environment variables for dynamic language sensors
Environment Variable	Value	Description
`INSTANA_AGENT_HOST`	IP address or DNS name	Allows users to manually specify location of the Instana host agent.
`INSTANA_AGENT_PORT`	Port number	Manually specify the port of the Instana host agent.
`INSTANA_DISABLE_AUTO_INSTR`	`true` or `false`	Disables automatic instrumentation.
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	String	Sets the application-wide service name.
`INSTANA_PROCESS_NAME`	String	Sets a custom label for the infrastructure entity that represents that runtime.^[1]
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	Any value	Enables debug logging. Use it only for a limited time to avoid overhead and log spamming.
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	`true` or `false`	Set this variable to `true` to disable opentelemetry integration. The default value is `false`.
`INSTANA_STACK_TRACE_LENGTH`	Integer	Set this variable to limit the number of captured stack trace frames in a span.

For information on Java, Scala, .NET, .NET Core, or PHP, see the corresponding documentation pages.

Table 7: Environment variables supported for language sensors
Language	Crystal	Go	Haskell	NGINX	Node.js	PHP	Python	Ruby	.NET Core	.NET
`INSTANA_AGENT_HOST`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_AGENT_PORT`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_AUTO_INSTR`	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌
`INSTANA_SERVICE_NAME`	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
`INSTANA_PROCESS_NAME`	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DEBUG`	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
`INSTANA_DISABLE_USE_OPENTELEMETRY`	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
`INSTANA_STACK_TRACE_LENGTH`	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌

If the default entity name is used in any alerting rule (for example System Rules > Hosts without matching entities that run on them), changing the entity name by using this capability can trigger those alerts. ↩︎