Install Prometheus and node_exporter on Debian 12/11/10

How To Install Prometheus on Debian 12 or Debian 11 or Debian 10 Linux?. Prometheus is a free and open source monitoring system that enables you to collect time-series data metrics from any target systems. Its web interface enables you to perform powerful queries, visualize collected data, and to configure alerts.

Original content from computingforgeeks.com - post 25693

In this guide, we will cover the installation of Prometheus and node_exporter on Debian machine. Since this is a binary installation method, there is no required dependency to continue with the setup.

Step 1: Create Prometheus system user / group

We’ll create a dedicated Prometheus system user and group. The -r or –system option is used for this purpose.

sudo groupadd --system prometheus
sudo useradd -s /sbin/nologin --system -g prometheus prometheus

This creates a system user which doesn’t need /bin/bash shell, that’s why we used -s /sbin/nologin.

Step 2: Create configuration and data directories

Prometheus needs directories to store data and configuration files. Create all required directories using the commands below.

sudo mkdir /var/lib/prometheus
for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo mkdir -p /etc/prometheus/${i}; done

Step 3: Download and Install Prometheus

Let’s download the latest release of Prometheus archive and extract it to get binary files. You can check releases from Prometheus releases Github page.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install wget curl
mkdir -p /tmp/prometheus && cd /tmp/prometheus
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/prometheus/prometheus/releases/latest|grep browser_download_url|grep linux-amd64|cut -d '"' -f 4|wget -qi -

Extract the file.

tar xvf prometheus*.tar.gz
cd prometheus*/

Move the prometheus binary files to /usr/local/bin/

Since /usr/local/bin/ is in your PATH, let’s copy binary files to it.

sudo mv prometheus promtool /usr/local/bin/

Move prometheus configuration template to /etc directory.

sudo mv prometheus.yml  /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Also move consoles and console_libraries to /etc/prometheus directory:

sudo mv consoles/ console_libraries/ /etc/prometheus/
cd ~/
rm -rf /tmp/prometheus

Step 4: Create/Edit a Prometheus configuration file.

Prometheus configuration file will be located under /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml.

cat /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

The default configuration file looks similar to below.

# my global config
global:
  scrape_interval:     15s # Set the scrape interval to every 15 seconds. Default is every 1 minute.
  evaluation_interval: 15s # Evaluate rules every 15 seconds. The default is every 1 minute.
  # scrape_timeout is set to the global default (10s).

# Alertmanager configuration
alerting:
  alertmanagers:
  - static_configs:
    - targets:
      # - alertmanager:9093

# Load rules once and periodically evaluate them according to the global 'evaluation_interval'.
rule_files:
  # - "first_rules.yml"
  # - "second_rules.yml"

# A scrape configuration containing exactly one endpoint to scrape:
# Here it's Prometheus itself.
scrape_configs:
  # The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from this config.
  - job_name: 'prometheus'

    # metrics_path defaults to '/metrics'
    # scheme defaults to 'http'.

    static_configs:
    - targets: ['localhost:9090']

Step 5: Create a Prometheus systemd Service unit file

To be able to manage Prometheus service with systemd, you need to explicitly define this unit file.

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service<<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Prometheus
Documentation=https://prometheus.io/docs/introduction/overview/
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=prometheus
Group=prometheus
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/prometheus \
  --config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml \
  --storage.tsdb.path=/var/lib/prometheus \
  --web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles \
  --web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries \
  --web.listen-address=0.0.0.0:9090 \
  --web.external-url=

SyslogIdentifier=prometheus
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Change directory permissions.

Change the ownership of these directories to Prometheus user and group.

for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/${i}; done
for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo chmod -R 775 /etc/prometheus/${i}; done
sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /var/lib/prometheus/

Reload systemd daemon and start the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start prometheus
sudo systemctl enable prometheus

Confirm that the service is running.

$ systemctl status prometheus.service 
* prometheus.service - Prometheus
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2023-05-22 23:42:43 EAT; 19s ago
       Docs: https://prometheus.io/docs/introduction/overview/
   Main PID: 5790 (prometheus)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 9303)
     Memory: 16.5M
        CPU: 45ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/prometheus.service
             `-5790 /usr/local/bin/prometheus --config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml --storage.tsdb.path=/var/lib/prometheus --web.console.>

May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.219Z caller=tls_config.go:232 level=info component=web msg="Listening on" addres>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.219Z caller=tls_config.go:235 level=info component=web msg="TLS is disabled." ht>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.220Z caller=head.go:748 level=info component=tsdb msg="WAL segment loaded" segme>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.220Z caller=head.go:785 level=info component=tsdb msg="WAL replay completed" che>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.221Z caller=main.go:1037 level=info fs_type=EXT4_SUPER_MAGIC
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.221Z caller=main.go:1040 level=info msg="TSDB started"
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.221Z caller=main.go:1220 level=info msg="Loading configuration file" filename=/e>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.221Z caller=main.go:1257 level=info msg="Completed loading of configuration file>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.222Z caller=main.go:1001 level=info msg="Server is ready to receive web requests>
May 22 23:42:43 grafana prometheus[5790]: ts=2023-05-22T20:42:43.222Z caller=manager.go:995 level=info component="rule manager" msg="Starting rul>
root@grafana:~#

Access Prometheus web interface on URL http://[ip_hostname]:9090.

Step 6: Install node_exporter on Debian

Download node_exporter archive.

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/latest| grep browser_download_url|grep linux-amd64|cut -d '"' -f 4|wget -qi -

Extract downloaded file and move the binary file to /usr/local/bin.

tar -xvf node_exporter*.tar.gz
cd  node_exporter*/
sudo cp node_exporter /usr/local/bin
cd

Confirm installation.

$ node_exporter --version
node_exporter, version 1.5.0 (branch: HEAD, revision: 1b48970ffcf5630534fb00bb0687d73c66d1c959)
  build user:       root@6e7732a7b81b
  build date:       20221129-18:59:09
  go version:       go1.19.3
  platform:         linux/amd64

Create node_exporter service.

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=prometheus
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node_exporter

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

Reload systemd and start the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start node_exporter
sudo systemctl enable node_exporter

Confirm status:

$ systemctl status node_exporter.service
* node_exporter.service - Node Exporter
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2023-05-22 23:45:06 EAT; 6s ago
   Main PID: 5872 (node_exporter)
      Tasks: 5 (limit: 9303)
     Memory: 2.2M
        CPU: 5ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/node_exporter.service
             `-5872 /usr/local/bin/node_exporter

May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=thermal_zone
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=time
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=timex
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=udp_queues
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=uname
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=vmstat
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=xfs
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=node_exporter.go:117 level=info collector=zfs
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=tls_config.go:232 level=info msg="Listening on" address=[::]:9100
May 22 23:45:06 grafana node_exporter[5872]: ts=2023-05-22T20:45:06.996Z caller=tls_config.go:235 level=info msg="TLS is disabled." http2=false a>

Once we confirm the service to be running, let’s add the node_exporter to the Prometheus server.

sudo vim /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Add new job under scrape_config section.

scrape_configs:
  # The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from this config.
  - job_name: "prometheus"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]
  - job_name: 'node_exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9100']

Restart Prometheus:

sudo systemctl restart prometheus

You now have Prometheus installed on Debian Linux system. Check our Prometheus monitoring guides.