Kieker can be used to instrument and monitor different programming languages and protocols. Depending on the language and platform different methods of structuring and naming data structures, functions, methods, object and modules exist. However, we want to ensure some familiarity between all languages. Thus, this page contains some guidelines how to define and structure a language support projects.
common
records
All the records generated automatically with the IRL compiler or crafted by hand
utilities
Utility functions, e.g., for serialization
monitoring
controller
Functionality and data structures to create and setup a monitoring controller, including a way to gain the current time, thread, process etc.
Monitoring controller governs everything, including a shutdown hook if this is possible
Writer controller which coordinates sending data somewhere or storing data in a file following the Kieker file formats (see architecture-file-and-serialization-formats). The writer controller might support different writers for different purposes which can be configured at runtime or compile time, depending on the language.
In some setups, it is helpful to be able to store data in probe. Therefore, it is an optional feature to provide the setup of runtime properties in a probe controller. A Typical feature is to activate and deactivate probes at runtime. However, this could also be achieved by other means depending on the language. This features is required in case beside monitoring also actors should be implemented.
The probe controller can get its information from a file or by other means. Like the Java implementation of Kieker which accepts data events via TCP. Be aware that using this option can be a vulnerability issue. Therefore, such TCP connection must be governed by security measures.
probes
Probes contain ready to use implementations of probes for a specific language.
README.md (containing basic information about the project, build instructions and references to the wiki to explain how the package is used)
License
The language pack should be named kieker-lang-pack-LANGUAGE or if monitoring and common are packed in different libraries kieker-monitoring-lang-pack-LANGUAGE and kieker-common-lang-pack-LANGUAGE.