...
An example can be seen at https://mon.jaytaala.com.
Guide
We'll cover the following steps:
Table of Contents | ||
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|
Installing and configuring Prometheus (with Docker)
I'm assuming you are running an up-to-date Linux distro and you have Docker installed (if not, you'll need to install Docker).
We only need to run a single command (although it's not a short one) to install and configure our Prometheus setup. To make this a bit easier, I provide my setup files in a git repo you can clone:
https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/prometheus.git
Code Block | ||
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git clone https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/prometheus |
The repo contains only two files (which are the only two we need):
- run-container.sh : shell script that will run our docker command to install / configure prometheus.
- prometheus.yml : single configuration file for prometheus;
See the Explanation of run-container.sh section for an explanation and several notes for these files.
Once you've cloned the repo, simply make the script executable (if it isn't already) and run the script with:
Code Block | ||
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chmod +x run-container.sh
./run-container.sh |
Docker will then download the latest official Prometheus Docker image, create and configure the container and then run said container.
If things worked as they should you should be able to visit the basic Prometheus web interface at http:\\<INTERNAL-SERVER-IP>:10090.
Info |
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Replace <INTERNAL-SERVER-IP> with the actual internal IP address of your server, e.g. 192.168.1.x, 10.0.0.x (or whatever it is). |
That's it! You will now have Prometheus running on port 10090.
Info |
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Note: port 10090 is not the default Prometheus port (which is 9090) - I have another service using that port (which I didn't want to change). See the Explanation of run-container.sh section for notes on changing the port. |
...
This script simply creates (and/or runs) our Prometheus container. So what's going on here?
View Git file | ||||||||||
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|
...
removes / deletes the container. This deletes the already running container (if it exists) before creating a new one.
Tip |
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Don't worry(!) our data won't be lost since we're persisting the Prometheus data with a Docker data volume! |
...
main docker run command.
The -d
flag means "detached" (i.e. run it detached or in the background) and the --name=prom
names the container that will be created "prom".
...
this data-binds our prometheus.yml config file to /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
in the created Docker container. I.e. prometheus running in the container will use this file for it's configuration.
...
this instructs Docker to create a data volume (for storing our persistent Prometheus data) and call it "prom-data".
It's kind of similar to a data-bind but it's managed by Docker and provides many advantages.
The actual files (and persistent data) can be found at:/var/lib/docker/volumes/prom-data/_data
...
binds port 10090 on the host to post 10090 on the container (in other words exposes the prometheus port on the host).
Info |
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Note: this is not the default port for Prometheus (default port is 9090). Change both of these to whatever port you would like to bind Prometheus to. Also see line number 9 which would also need to match the port entered here. You'll also need to modify the included |
...
This file is the main Prometheus.yml scrape configuration file. It defines things like how often Prometheus should scrape (query) data and from where (and how) it should scrape this data.
View Git file | ||||||||
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Prometheus (be default) monitors itself and can report on scrape query duration, samples added to db, data compaction stats etc.
Info |
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Note that |
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Scrape configutation for node_exporter, an exporter which scrape server machine metrics. We haven't set this up yet but will in the following sections.
Info |
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Note that This is NOT localhost (localhost in this context is the Prometheus Docker container). |
...
Scrape configuration for blackbox, a prober that can probe endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP and ICMP. We haven't set this up yet but will in the following sections.
Info |
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Note that This is NOT localhost (localhost in this context is the Prometheus Docker container). |
A bit about Blackbox Exporter, Node_Exporter and Grafana...
Expand |
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Blackbox ExporterBlackbox exporter is a prometheus exporter which can probe endpoints via http/https, icmp, etc. It's extremely simple to setup and can be used to monitor the status of various endpoints (which could be web applications, REST endpoints, etc.). We've already setup Node_Exporternode_exporter is a prometheus exporter which monitors hardware and 'nix OS metrics. It runs on a port exposed to prometheus and prometheus can then query it and get a (large) ranger of metrics for whatever machine is running node_exporter. GrafanaGrafana is a great platform for visualising data and metrics from large data sets. It can connect with a very large number of data sources and has native (built-in) prometheus support, which makes it extremely easy to integrate prometheus and provides an attractive and versatile front-end to view various prometheus metrics. |
Guide
We'll cover the following steps:
Table of Contents | ||
---|---|---|
|
Installing and configuring Prometheus, Blackbox exporter, and Grafana with Docker-Compose
I'm assuming you are running an up-to-date Linux distro and you have Docker and Docker Compose installed (if not, you'll need to install Docker and then Docker Compose).
Thanks to Docker and Docker Compose, we'll only need to run a single command to deploy Prometheus, an exporter (which can query endpoints), and Grafana. Let's start by cloning our setup files from my git repo:
https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/docker-compose-prometheus-grafana
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git clone https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/docker-compose-prometheus-grafana.git |
The repo contains several files:
- blackbox-exporter.yml : configuration file for blackbox-exporter
- dashboard-blackbox.json : blackbox exporter dashboard I've customised see Adding monitoring dashboards;
- dashboard-node_exporter.json : node_exporter dashboard I've customised see Adding monitoring dashboards;
- docker-compose.yml : docker compose config file
- grafana.ini : grafana configuration file
- prometheus.yml : prometheus configuration file
Once you've cloned the repo, simply run (from within the cloned folder):
Code Block |
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docker-compose up -d |
If things worked as they should you should be able to visit the basic Grafana web interface at http:\\<INTERNAL-SERVER-IP>:3000.
Info |
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Replace <INTERNAL-SERVER-IP> with the actual internal IP address of your server, e.g. 192.168.1.x, 10.0.0.x (or whatever it is). |
That's it! that wasn't so bad was it?
Troubleshooting
Expand | ||
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If it fails it's most likely that port 3000 on the host is taken - in which case simply change the "ports" first value in docker-compose.yml to another port. E.g. for me I used:
|
Optional reading (explanation of configuration files)
Expand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This file is the main Prometheus.yml scrape configuration file. It defines things like how often Prometheus should scrape (query) data and from where (and how) it should scrape this data.
This file is the main grafana config file for our setup. It defines things server related settings, as well as settings we'll use to enable public viewing access.
|
Installing and configuring node_exporter (to monitor server stats)
By default node_exporter enables a large number of "collectors" (modules which collect certain information from the machine). See here for a list of collectors enabled by default (and what info they collect).
node_exporter can be run from a docker container, but it's not recommended since it should be run directly on the host hardware to collect stats.
Installing node_exporter can be done by downloading a recent version, untar'ing and executing. We're going to be doing an extra step here to manage node_exporter with systemd (so it starts on server boot etc.).
We start with downloading. You can find a link for the latest version at https://prometheus.io/download/#node_exporter. At the time of this writing the latest stable version for linux-amd64 was node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz.
We'll download, untar, and then move it to /opt/node_exporter
Code Block | ||
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wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v0.18.1/node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xf node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64 /opt/node_exporter |
With node_exporter installed let's make it easier to manage by creating a systemd service. Create a file in /etc/systemd/system/ with your favourite text editor (I'm using vim here):
Code Block | ||
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sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service |
and paste the following:
Code Block |
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[Unit]
Description=Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/node_exporter/node_exporter --web.listen-address=:10091
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target |
Info |
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I'm using a non-default port here (10091) so change it to whatever port you prefer (or have free). |
Finally let's enable it (to start on boot) and start the service
Code Block | ||
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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now node_exporter |
We've already setup node_exporter in our prometheus configuration file (see lines 31 to 34).
View Git file | ||||||||||||
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Setting up Grafana data sources and dashboards
Updating Prometheus with Docker
Updating with Docker is straight-forward. We just need to pull the (latest) image and then re-run our run-container.sh
script.
Code Block | ||
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docker pull prom/prometheus
./run-container.sh |
Installing and configuring node_exporter (to monitor server stats)
node_exporter is a prometheus exporter which monitors hardware and 'nix OS metrics. It runs on a port exposed to prometheus and prometheus can then query it and get a (large) ranger of metrics for whatever machine is running node_exporter.
By default node_exporter enables a large number of "collectors" (modules which collect certain information from the machine). See here for a list of collectors enabled by default (and what info they collect).
node_exporter can be run from a docker container, but it's not recommended since it should be run directly on the host hardware to collect stats.
Installing node_exporter can be done by downloading a recent version version, untar'ing and executing. We're going to be doing an extra step here to manage node_exporter with systemd (so it starts on server boot etc.).
We start with downloading. You can find a link for the latest version at https://prometheus.io/download/#node_exporter. At the time of this writing the latest stable version for linux-amd64 was node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz.
We'll download, untar, and then move it to /opt/node_exporter
Code Block | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v0.18.1/node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xf node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv node_exporter-0.18.1.linux-amd64 /opt/node_exporter |
With node_exporter installed let's make it easier to manage by creating a systemd service. Create a file in /etc/systemd/system/ with your favourite text editor (I'm using vim here):
Code Block | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service |
and paste the following:
Code Block |
---|
[Unit]
Description=Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/node_exporter --web.listen-address=:10091
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target |
Info |
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I'm using a non-default port here (10091) so change it to whatever port you prefer (or have free). |
Finally let's enable it (to start on boot) and start the service
Code Block | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now node_exporter |
We've already setup node_exporter in our prometheus configuration file (see lines 31 to 34).
View Git file | ||||||||||||
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|
Installing and configuring blackbox (to monitor endpoints)
Blackbox exporter is a prometheus exporter which can probe endpoints via http/https, icmp, etc. It's extremely simple to setup and can be used to monitor the status of various endpoints (which could be web applications, REST endpoints, etc.).
We'll be using the a docker image to install and configure Blackbox exporter.
Start by cloning https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/blackbox:
Code Block | ||
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git clone https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/blackbox |
Similar to our prometheus docker image install, the repo contains only two files (which are the only two we need):
- run-container.sh : shell script that will run our docker command to install / configure blackbox exporter;
- config.yml : single configuration file for for blackbox exporter.
To setup and run our blackbox exporter simply make the run-container.sh executable and run it:
Code Block | ||
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chmod +x run-container.sh
./run-container.sh |
This will start blackbox-exporter
on the default port (9115). The config.yml
file is similar to the default blackbox-exporter
config.yml
, but set the preferred ip protocol to ipv4 (by default it uses ipv6).
We've already setup blackbox-exporter
in our prometheus configuration file (see lines 36 to 57).
View Git file | ||||||||||||
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Info |
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Note: the internal ip address on line 57 must be the actual ip address of our host (not Add any other endpoints in the |
Installing and configuring Grafana
Grafana is a great platform for visualising data and metrics from large data sets. It can connect with a very large number of data sources and has native (built-in) prometheus support, which makes it extremely easy to integrate prometheus and provides an attractive and versatile front-end to view various prometheus metrics.
So let's go ahead and install grafana and do some basic setup.
Like previous approaches, we'll use a simple docker image and setup data-persistency via a docker-volume, set a port for grafana to use (in this example we use a custom port), as well as setup public (anonymous) viewing access.
We only need two files for all this - which you can get by cloning
https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/grafana.git
Code Block | ||
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| ||
git clone https://gitlab.jaytaala.com/docker/grafana.git |
The repo contains:
- run-container.sh : shell script that will run our docker command to install / configure grafana.
- grafana.ini : single configuration file for grafana;
- dashboard-blackbox.json : blackbox exporter dashboard I've customised see Adding monitoring dashboards;
- dashboard-node_exporter.json : node_exporter dashboard I've customised see Adding monitoring dashboards;
See the Explanation of run-container.sh section for an explanation and several notes for these files.
Once you've cloned the repo, simply make the script executable (if it isn't already) and run the script with:
Code Block | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
chmod +x run-container.sh
./run-container.sh |
Docker will then download the latest official Prometheus Docker image, create and configure the container and then run said container.
If things worked as they should you should be able to visit the basic Prometheus web interface at http:\\<INTERNAL-SERVER-IP>:10090.
Info |
---|
Replace <INTERNAL-SERVER-IP> with the actual internal IP address of your server, e.g. 192.168.1.x, 10.0.0.x (or whatever it is). |
That's it! You will now have Prometheus running on port 10090.
Info |
---|
Note: port 10090 is not the default Prometheus port (which is 9090) - I have another service using that port (which I didn't want to change). See the Explanation of run-container.sh section for notes on changing the port. |
...
This script simply creates (and/or runs) our grafana container. So what's going on here?
View Git file | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
...
removes / deletes the container. This deletes the already running container (if it exists) before creating a new one.
Tip |
---|
Don't worry(!) our data won't be lost since we're persisting the grafana data with a Docker data volume! |
...
main docker run command.
The -d
flag means "detached" (i.e. run it detached or in the background) and the --name=graf
names the container that will be created "graf".
...
this data-binds our grafana.ini config file to /etc/grafana/grafana.ini
in the created Docker container.
...
this instructs Docker to create a data volume (for storing our persistent grafana data) and call it "graf-data".
It's kind of similar to a data-bind but it's managed by Docker and provides many advantages.
The actual files (and persistent data) can be found at:/var/lib/docker/volumes/graf-data/_data
...
binds port 4000 on the host to post 4000 on the container.
Info |
---|
Note: this is not the default port for grafana (default port is 3000). I had to change it as I was running another service on port 3000. Change both of these to whatever port you would like to bind grafana to. You'll also need to modify the included |
...
This file is the main grafana config file for our setup. It defines things server related settings, as well as settings we'll use to enable public viewing access.
View Git file | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
...
Settings to enable anonymous (public) viewer access to any dashboards you give Viewer
access to.
...
Adding Prometheus as a data source to Grafana
Once you have your docker container containers running, access port 4000 3000 on the server with a browser (e.g. visit httpvisit http://192.168.0.1:4000 3000 or whatever your internal address is for your server). is for your server).
Info |
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For external network access you should (shall!) secure client-server comms. See Apache reverse-proxy SSL to multiple server applications for a nice(?) way to do this for our setup here. |
Grafana's login screen should appear - if you're the first user to login after creating this container then just enter any new credentials.
...
You can leave most setting as default and simply enter the server url for the Prometheus instance we have setup, for my case it looks like:
docker-compose defined prom hostname with port 9090
for the Prometheus instance we have setup:
Info |
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|
Warning |
The URL should point to the server's internal IP and NOT localhost (or 127.0.0.1) since |
Anchor | ||||
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|
...
Grafana will grab the dashboard and after a second or so will fetch the dashboard ready for importing. Enter a few options (see arrows) and then click "Import":
References
- https://www.docker.com/
- https://docs.docker.com/compose/
- https://prometheus.io/
- https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter
- https://prometheus.io/download/#node_exporter
- https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter
- https://grafana.com/
...