Add APM user settings

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Starting in Elastic Stack version 8.0, how you change APM settings and the settings that are available to you depend on how you spin up Elastic APM. There are two modes:

Fleet-managed APM integration

New deployments created in Elastic Stack version 8.0 and later will be managed by Fleet.

Standalone APM Server (legacy)

Deployments created prior to Elastic Stack version 8.0 are in legacy mode. Upgrading to or past Elastic Stack 8.0 does not remove you from legacy mode.

Check Edit standalone APM settings (legacy)for information on how to configure Elastic APM in this mode.

To learn more about the differences between these modes, or to switch from Standalone APM Server (legacy) mode to Fleet-managed, check Switch to the Elastic APM integration.

TLS configuration for Fleet-managed mode

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Users running Elastic Stack versions 7.16 or 7.17 need to manually configure TLS. This step is not necessary for Elastic Stack versions ≥ 8.0.

Pick one of the following options:

  1. Upload and configure a publicly signed Elasticsearch TLS certificates. Check Encrypt traffic in clusters with a self-managed Fleet Server for details.
  2. Change the Elasticsearch hosts where Elastic Agents send data from the default public URL, to the internal URL. In Kibana, navigate to Fleet and select the Elastic Cloud agent policy. Click Fleet settings and update the Elasticsearch hosts URL. For example, if the current URL is https://123abc.us-central1.gcp.foundit.no:9244, change it to http://123abc.containerhost:9244.

Edit standalone APM settings (legacy)

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Elastic Cloud Enterprise supports most of the legacy APM settings. Through a YAML editor in the console, you can append your APM Server properties to the apm-server.yml file. Your changes to the configuration file are read on startup.

Be aware that some settings could break your cluster if set incorrectly and that the syntax might change between major versions. Before upgrading, be sure to review the full list of the latest APM settings and syntax.

To change APM settings:

  1. Log into the Cloud UI.
  2. On the Deployments page, select your deployment.

    Narrow the list by name, ID, or choose from several other filters. To further define the list, use a combination of filters.

  3. From your deployment menu, go to the Edit page.
  4. In the APM section, select Edit user settings. (For existing deployments with user settings, you may have to expand the Edit apm-server.yml caret instead.)
  5. Update the user settings.
  6. Select Save changes.

If a setting is not supported by Elastic Cloud Enterprise, you get an error message when you try to save. We suggest changing one setting with each save, so you know which one is not supported.

Example: Enable RUM and increase the rate limit (legacy)

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When capturing the user interaction with clients with real user monitoring (RUM), particularly for situations with concurrent clients, you can increase the number of times each IP address can send a request to the RUM endpoint. Version 6.5 includes an additional settings for the LRU cache.

For APM Server version 6.5 and later with RUM agent version 2.x or 3.x:

apm-server:
  rum:
    enabled: true
    event rate:
      limit: 3000
      lru_size: 5000

With the version 6.5 release, we recommend verifying that your agents continue to be compatible with your APM Server.

For APM Server version 6.4 or 6.3 with RUM agent version 0.x or 1.x:

apm-server:
  rum:
    enabled: true
    rate_limit: 100

Example: Disable RUM (legacy)

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If you know that you won’t be tracking RUM data, you can disable the endpoint proactively.

For APM Server version 6.4 and later:

apm-server:
  rum:
    enabled: false

Example: Adjust the event limits configuration (legacy)

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If the size of the HTTP request frequently exceeds the maximum, you might need to change the limit on the APM Server and adjust the relevant settings in the agent.

For APM Server version 6.5 and later:

apm-server:
  max_event_size: 407200

Logging settings (legacy)

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Examples of APM logging settings:

logging.level
Specifies the minimum log level. One of debug, info, warning, or error. Defaults to info.
logging.selectors
The list of debugging-only selector tags used by different APM Server components. Use * to enable debug output for all components. For example, add publish to display all the debug messages related to event publishing.
logging.metrics.enabled
If enabled, APM Server periodically logs its internal metrics that have changed in the last period. Defaults to true.
logging.metrics.period
The period after which to log the internal metrics. Defaults to 30s.