Monitoring Linux Servers with Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana

Aug 4, 2023

Caution

🚀 A hands-on guide to setting up a Prometheus-based monitoring stack. We’ll use two Ubuntu-based VMs: one for Node Exporter, and another for Prometheus + Grafana.

🖥️ Architecture Overview

VM 1 (vms-01, IP: 192.168.1.7): Node Exporter
VM 2 (vms-02, IP: 192.168.1.8): Prometheus & Grafana

🔧 Step 1 — Install Node Exporter

Node Exporter collects hardware and OS metrics, which are then scraped by Prometheus.

sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false node_exporter
wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.6.1/node_exporter-1.6.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz -P /mnt
cd /mnt
tar -zxvf node_exporter-1.6.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
cp node_exporter-1.6.1.linux-amd64/node_exporter /usr/local/bin
chown node_exporter:node_exporter /usr/local/bin/node_exporter

Create the systemd service:

[Unit]
Description=Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=node_exporter
Group=node_exporter
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node_exporter

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the service:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start node_exporter
systemctl enable node_exporter

Verify via browser: http://192.168.1.7:9100/metrics

📦 Step 2 — Install Prometheus

sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin prometheus
wget https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.46.0/prometheus-2.46.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz -P /mnt
cd /mnt
tar -zxvf prometheus-2.46.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
cp prometheus-2.46.0.linux-amd64/{prometheus,promtool} /usr/local/bin/
chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/prom*

mkdir /etc/prometheus
cp -r prometheus-2.46.0.linux-amd64/{consoles,console_libraries,prometheus.yml} /etc/prometheus
chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus

Edit /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "prometheus"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]

  - job_name: "node_exporter"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["192.168.1.7:9100"]

Create the Prometheus service:

[Unit]
Description=Prometheus Monitoring
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=prometheus
Group=prometheus
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/prometheus   --config.file /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml   --storage.tsdb.path /etc/prometheus/data/   --web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles   --web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start Prometheus:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start prometheus
systemctl enable prometheus

Access Prometheus UI: http://192.168.1.8:9090

📈 Step 3 — Install Grafana

apt-get install -y apt-transport-https software-properties-common wget
wget -q -O /usr/share/keyrings/grafana.key https://apt.grafana.com/gpg.key
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/grafana.key] https://apt.grafana.com stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list
apt-get update -y
apt-get install grafana -y

systemctl start grafana-server
systemctl enable grafana-server

Access Grafana at http://192.168.1.8:3000:

Username: admin
Password: admin

🧩 Integrate Grafana with Prometheus

Navigate to Connections → Data Sources
Select Prometheus → URL: http://192.168.1.8:9090
Click Save & Test

🧠 Dashboard Setup

Use the community dashboard template:
https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/10180

Steps:

Click New → Import
Enter Dashboard ID: 10180
Select Prometheus as the data source → Import

🎉 Done! You now have a powerful, open-source observability stack running.

If you run into issues during setup, drop a question in the comments.
Or share your own monitoring chaos stories — chances are, we’ve all been there 😄