Configure and access Spring Boot actuators in Tanzu Application Platform

This topic tells you how the Spring Boot conventions in Tanzu Application Platform configure Spring Boot actuators automatically. With this feature, users can activate or deactivate the automatic configuration of actuators on Tanzu Application Platform and on individual workloads.

Workload-level configuration

Developers can add a label to their workloads to activate or deactivate the automatic configuration of actuators. By default, all existing and future accelerator projects are configured to activate automatic configuration on the workload level.

To activate or deactivate the automatic configuration of actuators at the workload level:

To activate automatic configuration of actuators, set the following label to true in your workload YAML:

apps.tanzu.vmware.com/auto-configure-actuators: "true"

If the preceding label is set to true, the Spring Boot actuator convention sets the following actuator configuration:
- The JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS property is set as -Dmanagement.server.port="8081".
- The JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS property is set as -Dmanagement.endpoints.web.base-path="/actuator".
- Annotation on the PodIntent is set as boot.spring.io/actuator: http://:8081/actuator.
In addition to these settings, Application Live View is activated with the following actuator configuration:
- Label on the PodIntent is set as tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator: actuator.
- Label on the PodIntent is set as tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator.port: 8081.
To deactivate automatic configuration of actuators, set the following label to false in your workload YAML:

apps.tanzu.vmware.com/auto-configure-actuators: "false"

If the preceding label is set to false, the Spring Boot actuator convention does not set any JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS and does not set the annotation boot.spring.io/actuator.

Application Live View is activated and configured with default values for Spring Boot web applications, assuming that some actuators are activated on the default port. On activating Application Live View, the following actuator settings are set:
- The JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS property is set as -Dserver.port="8080".
- Label on the PodIntent is set as tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator: actuator.
- Label on the PodIntent is set as tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator.port: 8080.

The Application Live View GUI renders the pages with accessible information based on whether the actuator endpoints are accessible for an application.

By default, as an additional security measure, Spring Boot conventions does not expose all the actuator data over HTTP by exposing all the actuator endpoints. In addition, the information exposed by the health endpoint is not set to always by default.

If the automatic configuration of actuators is set to true either at the workload level or platform level, the Spring Boot convention then sets the runtime environment properties management.endpoints.web.exposure.include="*" and management.endpoint.health.show-details=true on to the PodSpec to expose all the actuator endpoints and detailed health information. You do not need to add these properties manually in application.properties or application.yml.

Platform-level configuration

In contrast to activating or deactivating the automatic configuration of actuators on the level of individual workloads, you can set a global setting for the platform instead. This setting is taken into account ONLY when there is no specific auto-configure-actuators setting on the individual workload.

To activate or deactivate the automatic configuration of actuators at a global level:

To activate the automatic configuration, when you install Spring Boot conventions, provide an entry in the values.yaml file. For example:
```
springboot_conventions:
  autoConfigureActuators: true
```
To deactivate the automatic configuration, you can provide the following entry:
```
springboot_conventions:
  autoConfigureActuators: false
```

Note
The default values for both platform level and workload level configuration is false.

To run Application Live View with Spring Boot apps, the Spring Boot convention recognizes PodIntents and adds the following metadata labels:

tanzu.app.live.view: "true": Activates the connector to observe application pod
tanzu.app.live.view.application.name: APPLICATION-NAME: Identifies the app name to be used internally by Application Live View
tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator.port: ACTUATOR-PORT: Identifies the port on the pod at which the actuators are available for Application Live View
tanzu.app.live.view.application.flavours: spring-boot: Exposes the framework flavor of the app

To run Application Live View with Spring Cloud Gateway apps, Spring Boot conventions recognizes PodIntents and adds the following metadata labels:

tanzu.app.live.view: "true": Activates the connector to observe application pod
tanzu.app.live.view.application.name: APPLICATION-NAME: Identifies the app name to be used internally by Application Live View
tanzu.app.live.view.application.actuator.port: ACTUATOR-PORT: Identifies the port on the pod at which the actuators are available for Application Live View
tanzu.app.live.view.application.flavours: spring-boot,spring-cloud-gateway: Exposes the framework flavors of the app