In the previous article I discussed how to install Prometheus on Linux. This time, as promised, I will share information about how to install node_exporter on linux. Before we starting, need to know, node_exporter is an OS / Server exporter of Prometheus. Where node_exporter itself acts as a metrics collector for a server. This will be very helpful in measuring and monitoring server resources such as CPU usage, RAM usage, DISK usage, and etc. OK, let’s get started with the installation:
1. Install node_exporter on Linux ¶
1.1. Install node_exporter on Linux CentOS 7 ¶
Preparation & Install node_exporter
- Create user for node_exporter ( without home directory )
useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false node_exporter
- Download and extract node_exporter
curl -LO https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.0.1/node_exporter-1.0.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz tar xzvf node_exporter-1.0.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz /* note : adjust the version and type of your linux */
- Copy node_exporter into bin directory and change ownership to node_exporter user
cp node_exporter-1.0.1.linux-amd64/node_exporter /usr/local/bin chown node_exporter:node_exporter /usr/local/bin/node_exporter
Node_exporter service
- Create service for node_exporter
vim /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service
- Fill in node_exporter.service file whit this
[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
- Reload daemon for register node_exporter.service
systemctl daemon-reload
- Activate node_exporter service and check the status
systemctl enable node_exporter systemctl start node_exporter systemctl status node_exporter
1.2. Install node_exporter on Linux Ubuntu ¶
For node_exporter installation on Ubuntu, the method is also the same as installing on CentOS 7, so you can follow the method described above 😀
2. Allow ports on firewall (optional) ¶
If you manage your port access with a firewall, you need to open port 9100 for prometheus access. Here are several ways to open a port for prometheus:
- allow ports on ufw firewall
sudo ufw allow 9100/tcp
- allow ports on iptables
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 9100 -j ACCEPT iptables-save | sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/iptables systemctl restart iptables
3. Access node_exporter ¶
At this point, node_exporter should have been successfully installed. Very good! Then we can access it at http://IP_ADDR:9100. it will look like this :
Then, click Metrics to display all metric data available at node_exporter. It will look like this:
Okay, until here you have successfully installed node_exporter. In the next article, I will discuss grafana and how to combine it with prometheus & node_exporter for real-time server monitoring. I will also discuss how to connect node_exporter with prometheus which I haven’t had the chance to discuss in this post. Thank you to all of you 😉