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indy advice docs & migration procedure (#11546)
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SylvainJuge authored Aug 28, 2024
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion docs/agent-features.md
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Expand Up @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ provides.
- Can set different defaults for properties
- Can customize tracer configuration programmatically
- Can provide custom exporter, propagator, sampler
- Can hook into bytebuddy to customize bytecode manipulation
- Can hook into ByteBuddy to customize bytecode manipulation
- Noteworthy instrumentation
- Log injection of IDs (logback, log4j2, log4j)
- Automatic context propagation across `Executor`s
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153 changes: 153 additions & 0 deletions docs/contributing/writing-instrumentation-module.md
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Expand Up @@ -360,3 +360,156 @@ For example:
```

[suppress]: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/instrumentation/java/automatic/agent-config/#suppressing-specific-auto-instrumentation

## Use non-inlined advice code with `invokedynamic`

Using non-inlined advice code is possible thanks to the `invokedynamic` instruction, this strategy
is referred as "indy" in reference to this. By extension "indy modules" are the instrumentation
modules using this instrumentation strategy.

The most common way to instrument code with ByteBuddy relies on inlining, this strategy will be
referred as "inlined" strategy as opposed to "indy".

For inlined advices, the advice code is directly copied into the instrumented method.
In addition, all helper classes are injected into the classloader of the instrumented classes.

For indy, advice classes are not inlined. Instead, they are loaded alongside all helper classes
into a special `InstrumentationModuleClassloader`, which sees the classes from both the instrumented
application classloader and the agent classloader.
The instrumented classes call the advice classes residing in the `InstrumentationModuleClassloader` via
invokedynamic bytecode instructions.

Using indy instrumentation has these advantages:

- allows instrumentations to have breakpoints set in them and be debugged using standard debugging techniques
- provides clean isolation of instrumentation advice from the application and other instrumentations
- allows advice classes to contain static fields and methods which can be accessed from the advice entry points - in fact generally good development practices are enabled (whereas inlined advices are [restricted in how they can be implemented](#use-advice-classes-to-write-code-that-will-get-injected-to-the-instrumented-library-classes))

### Indy modules and transition

Making an instrumentation "indy" compatible (or native "indy") is not as straightforward as making it "inlined".
However, ByteBuddy provides a set of tools and APIs that are mentioned below to make the process as smooth as possible.

Due to the changes needed on most of the instrumentation modules the migration can't be achieved in a single step,
we thus have to implement it in two steps:

- `InstrumentationModule#isIndyModule` implementation return `true` (and changes needed to make it indy compatible)
- set `inlined = false` on advice methods annotated with `@Advice.OnMethodEnter` or `@Advice.OnMethodExit`

The `otel.javaagent.experimental.indy` (default `false`) configuration option allows to opt-in for
using "indy". When set to `true`, the `io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.indy.AdviceTransformer`
will transform advices automatically to make them "indy native". Using this option is temporary and will
be removed once all the instrumentations are "indy native".

This configuration is automatically enabled in CI with `testIndy*` checks or when the `-PtestIndy=true` parameter is added to gradle.

In order to preserve compatibility with both instrumentation strategies, we have to omit the `inlined = false`
from the advice method annotations.

We have three sets of instrumentation modules:
- "inlined only": only compatible with "inlined", `isIndyModule` returns `false`.
- "indy compatible": compatible with both "indy" and "inlined", do not override `isIndyModule`, advices are modified with `AdviceTransformer` to be made "indy native" or "inlined" at runtime.
- "indy native": only compatible with "indy" `isIndyModule` returns `true`.

The first step of the migration is to move all the "inlined only" to the "indy compatible" category
by refactoring them with the limitations described below.

Once everything is "indy compatible", we can evaluate changing the default value of `otel.javaagent.experimental.indy`
to `true` and make it non-experimental.

### Shared classes and common classloader

By default, all the advices of an instrumentation module will be loaded into isolated classloaders,
one per instrumentation module. Some instrumentations require to use a common classloader in order
to preserve the semantics of `static` fields and to share classes.

In order to load multiple `InstrumentationModule` implementations in the same classloader, you need to
override the `ExperimentalInstrumentationModule#getModuleGroup` to return an identical value.

### Classes injected in application classloader

Injecting classes in the application classloader is possible by implementing the
`ExperimentalInstrumentationModule#injectedClassNames` method. All the class names listed by the
returned value will be loaded in the application classloader instead of the agent or instrumentation
module classloader.

This allows for example to access package-private methods that would not be accessible otherwise.

### Advice local variables

With inlined advices, declaring an advice method argument with `@Advice.Local` allows defining
a variable that is local to the advice execution for communication between the enter and exit advices.

When advices are not inlined, usage of `@Advice.Local` is not possible. It is however possible to
return a value from the enter advice and get the value in the exit advice with a parameter annotated
with `@Advice.Enter`, for example:

```java
@Advice.OnMethodEnter(suppress = Throwable.class, inlined = false)
public static Object onEnter(@Advice.Argument(1) Object request) {
return "enterValue";
}

@Advice.OnMethodExit(suppress = Throwable.class, onThrowable = Throwable.class, inlined = false)
public static void onExit(@Advice.Argument(1) Object request,
@Advice.Enter Object enterValue) {
// do something with enterValue
}
```

### Modifying method arguments

With inlined advices, using the `@Advice.Argument` annotation on method parameter with `readOnly = false`
allows modifying instrumented method arguments.

When using non-inlined advices, reading the argument values is still done with `@Advice.Argument`
annotated parameters, however modifying the values is done through the advice method return value
and `@Advice.AssignReturned.ToArguments` annotation:

```java
@Advice.OnMethodEnter(suppress = Throwable.class, inlined = false)
@Advice.AssignReturned.ToArguments(@ToArgument(1))
public static Object onEnter(@Advice.Argument(1) Object request) {
return "hello";
}
```

It is possible to modify multiple arguments at once by using an array, see usages of
`@Advice.AssignReturned.ToArguments` for detailed examples.

### Modifying method return value

With inlined advices, using the `@Advice.Return` annotation on method parameter with `readOnly = false`
allows modifying instrumented method return value on exit advice.

When using non-inlined advices, reading the original return value is still done with the `@Advice.Return`
annotated parameter, however modifying the value is done through the advice method return value
and `@Advice.AssignReturned.ToReturned`.

```java
@Advice.OnMethodExit(suppress = Throwable.class, inlined = false)
@Advice.AssignReturned.ToReturned
public static Object onExit(@Advice.Return Object returnValue) {
return "hello";
}
```

### Writing to internal class fields

With inlined advices, using the `@Advice.FieldValue(value = "fieldName", readOnly = false)` annotation
on advice method parameters allows modifying the `fieldName` field of the instrumented class.

When using non-inlined advices, reading the original field value is still done with the `@Advice.FieldValue`
annotated parameter, however modifying the value is done through the advice method return value
and `@Advice.AssignReturned.ToFields` annotation.

```java
@Advice.OnMethodEnter(suppress = Throwable.class, inlined = false)
@Advice.AssignReturned.ToFields(@ToField("fieldName"))
public static Object onEnter(@Advice.FieldValue("fieldName") Object originalFieldValue) {
return "newFieldValue";
}
```

It is possible to modify multiple fields at once by using an array, see usages of
`@Advice.AssignReturned.ToFields` for detailed examples.

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