Configuring your Apicurio Registry deployment

You can set important configuration options for your Apicurio Registry deployment, including the Apicurio Registry web console, logging, health checks, and observability:

For a list of all available configuration options, see Apicurio Registry configuration reference.

Configuring the Apicurio Registry web console

You can set optional environment variables to configure the Apicurio Registry web console specifically for your deployment environment or to customize its behavior.

Prerequisites

  • You have already installed Apicurio Registry.

Procedure

  1. Set the REGISTRY_API_URL environment variable to override the default REST API URL. For example, https://registry-api.my-domain.com/apis/registry/v3.

    Typically the Apicurio Registry Operator automatically configures the UI component with the REST API v3 URL. Override this value only if your deployment requires a custom URL.

  2. Set the REGISTRY_FEATURE_READ_ONLY environment variable to true to enable read-only mode. The default value is false.

    In read-only mode, you cannot make changes to registered artifacts. For example, the following actions are unavailable:

    • Creating a group

    • Creating an artifact

    • Uploading a new artifact version

    • Updating artifact metadata

    • Deleting an artifact

Apicurio Registry observability with OpenTelemetry

You can configure Apicurio Registry to export telemetry data using OpenTelemetry (OTel) for comprehensive observability. This includes distributed tracing, metrics export by using the OTLP protocol, and log correlation with trace context.

Apicurio Registry is built with OpenTelemetry support and all telemetry signals (traces, metrics, logs) are enabled at build time. However, the OpenTelemetry SDK is disabled by default at runtime. When enabled, Apicurio Registry exports telemetry data to an OpenTelemetry-compatible collector such as Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, or the OpenTelemetry Collector.

The individual signal properties (QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED, QUARKUS_OTEL_METRICS_ENABLED, QUARKUS_OTEL_LOGS_ENABLED) are build-time properties and cannot be changed at runtime. All signals are already enabled in the Apicurio Registry build. Use QUARKUS_OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=false to enable telemetry at runtime.
Before you configure OpenTelemetry, ensure that you have installed Apicurio Registry and have an OpenTelemetry-compatible backend available, for example, Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, or OpenTelemetry Collector.

To enable OpenTelemetry observability, configure the following environment variables:

Table 1. Environment variables for enabling OpenTelemetry
Environment variable Description

QUARKUS_OTEL_SDK_DISABLED

Set to false to enable the OpenTelemetry SDK and all telemetry signals. Default is true (disabled).

QUARKUS_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT

The endpoint URL of your OpenTelemetry collector. For example, http://jaeger:4317 for gRPC or http://jaeger:4318 for HTTP.
Example: Enabling OpenTelemetry with Jaeger
environment:
  QUARKUS_OTEL_SDK_DISABLED: "false"
  QUARKUS_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: "http://jaeger:4317"

In production environments, configure trace sampling to reduce processing overhead and control the volume of trace data:

Table 2. Environment variables for trace sampling
Environment variable Description

QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER

The sampling strategy. Use parentbased_traceidratio for production.

QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG

The sampling ratio (0.0 to 1.0). A value of 0.1 samples 10% of traces.
Example: Production sampling configuration (10% of traces)
environment:
  QUARKUS_OTEL_SDK_DISABLED: "false"
  QUARKUS_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: "http://otel-collector:4317"
  QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER: "parentbased_traceidratio"
  QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG: "0.1"

When you use JSON logging format, Apicurio Registry automatically includes trace context (trace ID and span ID) in log entries. You can then correlate logs and traces.

Example: Enabling structured logging with trace context
environment:
  QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_ENABLED: "true"
  QUARKUS_LOG_CONSOLE_JSON: "true"

OpenTelemetry features in Apicurio Registry

When OpenTelemetry is enabled, Apicurio Registry provides several observability features that are fully compatible with your existing monitoring setup.

  • Distributed tracing: All REST API requests are automatically traced with spans containing request details, path parameters, and Apicurio-specific attributes such as groupId, artifactId, and version.

  • Storage layer tracing: All storage operations create child spans. You can trace the complete request flow from REST API to database.

  • Kafka tracing: When using KafkaSQL storage, Kafka operations are automatically traced with context propagation.

  • Custom metrics: OpenTelemetry metrics for artifact operations, schema validations, and search requests are exported alongside existing Prometheus metrics.

  • Log correlation: When JSON logging is enabled, trace context is automatically injected into log entries for correlation.

Existing monitoring endpoints continue to function:

  • The Prometheus metrics endpoint is available at /metrics on the management port (default 9000).

  • Health check endpoints (/health/ready, /health/live) are served on the management port (default 9000).

  • All existing Micrometer-based metrics continue to function.

OpenTelemetry performance impact

OpenTelemetry instrumentation adds a small performance overhead. The following table shows the measured impact when all telemetry signals are enabled with 100% sampling:

Table 3. Performance impact with OpenTelemetry enabled (100% sampling)
Operation Latency increase Throughput decrease Impact level

System Info

+9% (+0.35ms)

-7%

Low

Create Artifact

+4% (+0.13ms)

-1%

Minimal

Get Artifact

+5% (+0.05ms)

-6%

Minimal

Search Artifacts

+1% (+0.04ms)

-1%

Minimal

List Groups

+6% (+0.16ms)

-5%

Low

Key findings:

  • Average overhead is approximately 4-6% in throughput with 100% trace sampling.

  • With the recommended 10% sampling ratio (QUARKUS_OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG=0.1), the overhead drops to less than 1%.

  • OpenTelemetry signals are disabled by default to avoid any overhead for users who do not require observability features.

To reproduce these benchmarks, run the following commands from the project root:

# Build the project
./mvnw clean install -DskipTests

# Run benchmark with OTEL disabled (baseline)
./mvnw test -pl app -Dtest=OpenTelemetryPerformanceTest \
    -DOpenTelemetryPerformanceTest=enabled

# Run benchmark with OTEL enabled
./mvnw test -pl app -Dtest=OpenTelemetryPerformanceEnabledTest \
    -DOpenTelemetryPerformanceTest=enabled
Additional resources

Configuring Apicurio Registry health checks on OpenShift

Health check endpoints are served on the management interface (port 9000 by default), separate from the main application port (8080). Configure liveness and readiness probes to target port 9000.

You can configure optional environment variables for liveness and readiness probes to monitor the health of the Apicurio Registry server on OpenShift:

  • Liveness probes test if the application can make progress. If the application cannot make progress, OpenShift automatically restarts the failing Pod.

  • Readiness probes test if the application is ready to process requests. If the application is not ready, it can become overwhelmed by requests, and OpenShift stops sending requests for the time that the probe fails. If other Pods are OK, they continue to receive requests.

The default values of the liveness and readiness environment variables are designed for most cases. Change these values only if required by your environment. Any changes to the defaults depend on your hardware, network, and amount of data stored. Keep these values as low as possible to avoid unnecessary processing overhead.
Prerequisites

  • You must have an OpenShift cluster with cluster administrator access.

  • You must have already installed Apicurio Registry on OpenShift.

  • You must have already installed and configured your chosen Apicurio Registry storage in either Strimzi or PostgreSQL.

Procedure

  1. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, log in using an account with cluster administrator privileges.

  2. Click Installed Operators > Apicurio Registry.

  3. On the ApicurioRegistry tab, click the Operator custom resource for your deployment, for example, example-apicurioregistry.

  4. In the main overview page, find the Deployment Name section and the corresponding DeploymentConfig name for your Apicurio Registry deployment, for example, example-apicurioregistry.

  5. In the left navigation menu, click Workloads > Deployment Configs, and select your DeploymentConfig name.

  6. Click the Environment tab, and enter your environment variables in the Single values env section, for example:

    • NAME: LIVENESS_STATUS_RESET

    • VALUE: 350

  7. Click Save at the bottom.

    Alternatively, you can complete these steps by using the OpenShift oc command. For more details, see the OpenShift CLI documentation.

Additional resources

Environment variables for Apicurio Registry health checks

You can use the following environment variables to configure Apicurio Registry health checks on OpenShift. These variables control liveness and readiness probes that monitor the health of the Apicurio Registry server. For an example procedure, see Configuring Apicurio Registry health checks on OpenShift.

The following environment variables are provided for reference only. The default values are designed for most cases. Change these values only if required by your environment. Any changes to the defaults depend on your hardware, network, and amount of data stored. Keep these values as low as possible to avoid unnecessary processing overhead.
Table 4. Environment variables for Apicurio Registry liveness probes
Name Description Type Default

LIVENESS_ERROR_THRESHOLD

Number of liveness issues or errors that can occur before the liveness probe fails.

Integer

1

LIVENESS_COUNTER_RESET

Period in which the threshold number of errors must occur. For example, if this value is 60 and the threshold is 1, the check fails after two errors occur in 1 minute.

Seconds

60

LIVENESS_STATUS_RESET

Number of seconds that must elapse without any more errors for the liveness probe to reset to OK status.

Seconds

300

LIVENESS_ERRORS_IGNORED

Comma-separated list of ignored liveness exceptions.

String

io.grpc.StatusRuntimeException,org.apache.kafka.streams.errors.InvalidStateStoreException
Because OpenShift automatically restarts a Pod that fails a liveness check, the liveness settings, unlike readiness settings, do not directly affect behavior of Apicurio Registry on OpenShift.
Table 5. Environment variables for Apicurio Registry readiness probes
Name Description Type Default

READINESS_ERROR_THRESHOLD

Number of readiness issues or errors that can occur before the readiness probe fails.

Integer

1

READINESS_COUNTER_RESET

Period in which the threshold number of errors must occur. For example, if this value is 60 and the threshold is 1, the check fails after two errors occur in 1 minute.

Seconds

60

READINESS_STATUS_RESET

Number of seconds that must elapse without any more errors for the readiness probe to reset to OK status. This value determines how long the Pod remains not ready before it returns to normal operation.

Seconds

300

READINESS_TIMEOUT

Readiness tracks the timeout of two operations:

  • How long it takes for storage requests to complete

  • How long it takes for HTTP REST API requests to return a response

If either operation exceeds the configured timeout, Apicurio Registry reports a readiness issue or error. This value controls the timeouts for both operations.

Seconds

5
Additional resources