Overview of Dapr configuration options

Sidecar configuration

Setup sidecar configuration

Self-hosted sidecar

In self hosted mode the Dapr configuration is a configuration file, for example config.yaml. By default the Dapr sidecar looks in the default Dapr folder for the runtime configuration eg: $HOME/.dapr/config.yaml in Linux/MacOS and %USERPROFILE%\.dapr\config.yaml in Windows.

A Dapr sidecar can also apply a configuration by using a --config flag to the file path with dapr run CLI command.

Kubernetes sidecar

In Kubernetes mode the Dapr configuration is a Configuration resource, that is applied to the cluster. For example:

kubectl apply -f myappconfig.yaml

You can use the Dapr CLI to list the Configuration resources

dapr configurations -k

A Dapr sidecar can apply a specific configuration by using a dapr.io/config annotation. For example:

  annotations:
    dapr.io/enabled: "true"
    dapr.io/app-id: "nodeapp"
    dapr.io/app-port: "3000"
    dapr.io/config: "myappconfig"

Note: There are more Kubernetes annotations available to configure the Dapr sidecar on activation by sidecar Injector system service.

Sidecar configuration settings

The following configuration settings can be applied to Dapr application sidecars:

• Tracing
• Metrics
• Logging
• Middleware
• Scope secret store access
• Access Control allow lists for building block APIs
• Access Control allow lists for service invocation API
• Disallow usage of certain component types
• Turning on preview features
• Example sidecar configuration

Tracing

Tracing configuration turns on tracing for an application.

The tracing section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

tracing:
  samplingRate: "1"
  otel: 
    endpointAddress: "https://..."
  zipkin:
    endpointAddress: "http://zipkin.default.svc.cluster.local:9411/api/v2/spans"

The following table lists the properties for tracing:

samplingRate is used to enable or disable the tracing. To disable the sampling rate , set samplingRate : "0" in the configuration. The valid range of samplingRate is between 0 and 1 inclusive. The sampling rate determines whether a trace span should be sampled or not based on value. samplingRate : "1" samples all traces. By default, the sampling rate is (0.0001) or 1 in 10,000 traces.

The OpenTelemetry (otel) endpoint can also be configured via an environment variables. The presence of the OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT environment variable turns on tracing for the sidecar.

See Observability distributed tracing for more information.

Metrics

The metrics section can be used to enable or disable metrics for an application.

The metrics section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

metrics:
  enabled: true

The following table lists the properties for metrics:

To mitigate high memory usage and egress costs associated with high cardinality metrics, you can set regular expressions for every metric exposed by the Dapr sidecar. For example:

metric:
    enabled: true
    rules:
    - name: dapr_runtime_service_invocation_req_sent_total
      labels:
      - name: method
        regex:
          "orders/": "orders/.+"

See metrics documentation for more information.

Logging

The logging section can be used to configure how logging works in the Dapr Runtime.

The logging section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

logging:
  apiLogging:
    enabled: false
    obfuscateURLs: false
    omitHealthChecks: false

The following table lists the properties for logging:

See logging documentation for more information.

Middleware

Middleware configuration set named HTTP pipeline middleware handlers The httpPipeline and the appHttpPipeline section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

httpPipeline: # for incoming http calls
  handlers:
    - name: oauth2
      type: middleware.http.oauth2
    - name: uppercase
      type: middleware.http.uppercase
appHttpPipeline: # for outgoing http calls
  handlers:
    - name: oauth2
      type: middleware.http.oauth2
    - name: uppercase
      type: middleware.http.uppercase

The following table lists the properties for HTTP handlers:

See Middleware pipelines for more information

Scope secret store access

See the Scoping secrets guide for information and examples on how to scope secrets to an application.

Access Control allow lists for building block APIs

See the selectively enable Dapr APIs on the Dapr sidecar guide for information and examples on how to set ACLs on the building block APIs lists.

Access Control allow lists for service invocation API

See the Allow lists for service invocation guide for information and examples on how to set allow lists with ACLs which using service invocation API.

Disallow usage of certain component types

Using the components.deny property in the Configuration spec you can specify a denylist of component types that cannot be initialized.

For example, the configuration below disallows the initialization of components of type bindings.smtp and secretstores.local.file:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: myappconfig
spec: 
  components:
    deny:
      - bindings.smtp
      - secretstores.local.file

You can optionally specify a version to disallow by adding it at the end of the component name. For example, state.in-memory/v1 disables initializing components of type state.in-memory and version v1, but does not disable a (hypothetical) v2 version of the component.

Note: One special note applies to the component type secretstores.kubernetes. When you add that component to the denylist, Dapr forbids the creation of additional components of type secretstores.kubernetes. However, it does not disable the built-in Kubernetes secret store, which is created by Dapr automatically and is used to store secrets specified in Components specs. If you want to disable the built-in Kubernetes secret store, you need to use the dapr.io/disable-builtin-k8s-secret-store annotation.

Turning on preview features

See the preview features guide for information and examples on how to opt-in to preview features for a release. Preview feature enable new capabilities to be added that still need more time until they become generally available (GA) in the runtime.

Example sidecar configuration

The following YAML shows an example configuration file that can be applied to an applications’ Dapr sidecar.

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: myappconfig
  namespace: default
spec:
  tracing:
    samplingRate: "1"
    stdout: true
    otel:
      endpointAddress: "localhost:4317"
      isSecure: false
      protocol: "grpc"
  httpPipeline:
    handlers:
      - name: oauth2
        type: middleware.http.oauth2
  secrets:
    scopes:
      - storeName: localstore
        defaultAccess: allow
        deniedSecrets: ["redis-password"]
  components:
    deny:
      - bindings.smtp
      - secretstores.local.file
  accessControl:
    defaultAction: deny
    trustDomain: "public"
    policies:
      - appId: app1
        defaultAction: deny
        trustDomain: 'public'
        namespace: "default"
        operations:
          - name: /op1
            httpVerb: ['POST', 'GET']
            action: deny
          - name: /op2/*
            httpVerb: ["*"]
            action: allow

Control plane configuration

There is a single configuration file called daprsystem installed with the Dapr control plane system services that applies global settings. This is only set up when Dapr is deployed to Kubernetes.

Control plane configuration settings

A Dapr control plane configuration contains the following sections:

• mtls for mTLS (Mutual TLS)

mTLS (Mutual TLS)

The mtls section contains properties for mTLS.

See the mTLS how-to and security concepts for more information.

Example control plane configuration

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: daprsystem
  namespace: default
spec:
  mtls:
    enabled: true
    allowedClockSkew: 15m
    workloadCertTTL: 24h