This plugin provides support for verifyInstrumentation DSL in New Relic instrumentation gradle build files. Using this plugin, you can figure out what range of versions for a library are supported by your instrumentation.

⚠️ This plugin has a very niche use case for the New Relic Java Agent. It is not intended to be used or modified for any other environment.

This project is distributed under the Apache 2 license.

Required:

• Gradle, minimum 7.2
• Java 17

Most Java agent instrumentation modules are compiled to target Java 8+. However, some modules are compiled to target Java 11 and others require Java 17. The verifier must be run with a minimum Java runtime of 17 because it will fail when trying to verify instrumentation targeting Java 17 when running all modules from the same runtime. Of course, when running individual modules the runtime can be whatever version the given module requires.

To use the plugin, update your buildscript dependencies in settings.gradle:

pluginManagement {
    repositories {
      mavenLocal()
      mavenCentral()
      gradlePluginPortal()
    }
  }

Update your build.gradle:

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath "com.newrelic.agent.java:gradle-verify-instrumentation-plugin:3.1"
    }
}

apply plugin "com.newrelic.gradle-verify-instrumentation-plugin"

Or:

 plugins {
   id("com.newrelic.gradle-verify-instrumentation-plugin") version "3.1"
 }

Note For instrumentation bundled with the New Relic Java agent, this is already configured and these steps are not required.

To configure the plugin for a specific weave instrumentation library, in each instrumentation's build.gradle, you'll need to configure a verifyInstrumentation block. Within this block, specify maven ranges that your module should pass or fail against.

The task downloads all versions (and all required dependencies) within the testing ranges. Each version downloaded is then checked to make sure the instrumentation in this module applies as expected:

• If the target code is covered by passes or passesOnly, then the module must apply successfully.
• If the target code is covered by fails or is outside of a passesOnly range, then the module must not apply successfully.
• If the condition above is not met, the gradle task fails with the reason.

verifyInstrumentation {
    fails("com.typesafe.play:anorm_2.11:[1.0,2.0)")
    passes("com.typesafe.play:anorm_2.11:[2.0,2.5)")
    fails("com.typesafe.play:anorm_2.11:[2.5,)")
}

In this example, we are saying that versions 2.0 (inclusive) through versions 2.5 (exclusive) of the "anorm_2.11" library should instrument correctly. We are also saying that versions 1.0 (inclusive) through versions 2.0 (exclusive) should fail. We also assert that versions greater than or equal to 2.5 fail instrumentation. This ensures that our instrumentation only works with the range specified in passes.

There are several options to use to configure the range support. In no particular order:

• passes specifies the range that should be able to be instrumented. It does not perform any checks on versions outside the range.
• fails specifies the range that should fail to be instrumented.
• passesOnly specifies the range that should be able to be instrumented. It then checks all versions outside the range (for the same group:name) to ensure those versions fail.
• exclude specifies versions (can be a range) to exclude
• excludeRegex specifies versions to exclude using a regex, useful for excluding all snapshot builds, for example.
• [] configures an inclusive match
• () configures an exclusive match

For more information on range syntax, see Maven version syntax.

Note In general, using passesOnly is preferable, as it ensures that only the given range works against your instrumentation, and not anything else. We can rewrite our above example with one line using passesOnly:

verifyInstrumentation {
    passesOnly  'com.typesafe.play:anorm_2.11:[2.0,2.5)'
}

The java_agent repo configuration includes several values you must set if using verifyInstrumentation outside the java_agent repo.

• nrAgent must be a reference to the newrelic.jar fat jar. You can specify a String to use a maven dependency, or a File to reference a local file.
• passesFileName is a file name as a String if you want all successful verifications to log to the same file. That is, when the package fails to apply when it should fail, or applies successfully when it should apply successfully.
• verifyClasspath can be used to verify that the jar successfully applies when loading exactly the compile and implementation dependencies specified for the implementation jar.

To verify all instrumentation libraries, simply invoke:

.../java_agent/$ ./gradlew verifyInstrumentation

...and then go for a fresh cup of coffee. You have enough time to get get a really good cup a couple blocks away.

To verify a specific instrumentation module, invoke:

...cd instrumentation/moduleToVerify
.../moduleToVerify/$ ../../gradlew verifyInstrumentation

Or:

.../java_agent/$ ./gradlew :instrumentation:moduleToVerify:verifyInstrumentation

By default, the Maven library is verified with its transitive dependencies. To specify additional dependencies while verifying, add a configuration closure and use 'implementation'.

verifyInstrumentation {
  passesOnly("io.spray:spray-routing_2.11:[1.3.1,)") {
    implementation("com.typesafe.akka:akka-actor_2.11:2.3.14") // akka is not explicitly listed as a spray dependency so we have to tell the verifier to include it.
  }
}

The versions to include and exclude are entirely dependent upon the target library being instrumented.

Once you have the general range of supported versions (something like [2.0,2.5)), you need to verify the whole range and make note of any failures. If you are maintaining an instrumentation module with an open-ended list (such as [2.0,)), then you need to run verifyInstrumentation periodically to ensure the version range is still correct.

You'll probably see that just one build here or there fails. With that, you should add an exception, as it's probably just a problem with a specific build of the target library. If you see a whole string of failures, it might indicate a more fundamental change in the library as of a specific version. In that case, you might need to cap the version support, and create a new instrumentation to handle the newer versions.

New Relic has open-sourced this project. This project is provided AS-IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OR DEDICATED SUPPORT. Report issues and contributions to the project here on GitHub.

We encourage you to bring your experiences and questions to the Explorers Hub where our community members collaborate on solutions and new ideas.

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