traces/docs/sources/tempo/operations/manage-advanced-systems/generic_forwarding.md

title, menuTitle, description, weight, aliases

title	menuTitle	description	weight	aliases
Generic forwarding	Generic forwarding	Asynchronous replication of ingested traces	400	../generic_forwarding/

Generic forwarding

Generic forwarding allows asynchronous replication of ingested traces. The distributor writes received spans to both the ingester and defined endpoints, if enabled. This feature works in a best-effort manner, meaning that no retries happen if an error occurs during replication.

{{< admonition type="warning" >}} Generic forwarding doesn't work retroactively. After it's enabled, the distributor only replicates freshly ingested spans. {{< /admonition >}}

Configure generic forwarding

Enabling generic forwarding requires the configuration of the distributor and overrides.

1. Define a list of forwarders in the distributor section. Each forwarder must specify a unique name, supported backend, and backend-specific configuration.

2. Reference these forwarders in the overrides section. This allows for fine-grained control over forwarding and makes it possible to enable this feature globally or on a per-tenant basis.

For a detailed view of all the configuration options for the generic forwarding feature, refer to distributor and overrides configuration pages.