Monitoring Your Own Server with Prometheus, Grafana, and Node Exporter Using Docker Compose

Introduction

Monitoring isn’t just a job; it’s a crucial part of managing systems. It helps you understand how your system is performing, find problems, and make it work better. This article shows you how to set up a strong monitoring system using Prometheus, Grafana, and node_exporter, all managed with Docker Compose. We’ll explain why each setting is important, not just how to do it

Prerequisites

Docker and Docker Compose: Ensure Docker and Docker Compose are installed on your server.

Setup Prometheus

Create a docker-compose.yml file with the following content.

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version: '3.8'  # Docker Compose version

networks:  # Define networks for the services
  monitoring:  # Name of the network
    driver: bridge  # Use the bridge driver

volumes:
  prometheus_data: {}  # Prometheus data volume

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    container_name: prometheus
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:  # Mount volumes for configuration and data
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml  # Mount the Prometheus configuration file
      - prometheus_data:/prometheus  # Mount the Prometheus data volume
    command:
      - '--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml'  # Path to the configuration file
      - '--storage.tsdb.path=/prometheus'  # Path to store the time-series database data
      - '--web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries'  # Path to console libraries
      - '--web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles'  # Path to console templates
      - '--web.enable-lifecycle'  # Enable lifecycle
    expose:  # Expose ports from the container
      - 9090  # Prometheus web UI port
    ports:  # Map ports from the container to the host
      - "30150:9090"  # Map container port 9090 to host port 30150
    networks:  # Attach the service to the monitoring network
      - monitoring

Create a prometheus.yml file in the same directory with your Prometheus configuration.

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global:  # Global configuration settings for Prometheus
  scrape_interval: 30s  # How often to scrape targets (30 seconds in this case)
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'prometheus'
    scrape_interval: 30s  # How often to scrape this job (30 seconds in this case)
    static_configs:  # Define static targets to scrape
      - targets: ['localhost:9090']  # The target to scrape (Prometheus itself in this case, running on localhost:9090)

Run docker-compose up -d to start Prometheus in the background.
Go to your serverip:30150/targets to check the services.

Setup Grafana

Add the following service to your existing docker-compose.yml file:

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  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest 
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - 30160:3000  # Map container port 3000 to host port 30160
    restart: unless-stopped 
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=admin  # Set the admin user for Grafana
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=grafana  # Set the admin password for Grafana
    volumes:  # Mount volumes for Grafana configuration
      - ./grafana:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources  # Mount the Grafana configuration directory
    networks:  # Attach the service to the monitoring network
      - monitoring

Run docker-compose up -d to start Grafana in the background.
Go to your serverip:30160 to check the services.

Node Exporter

Add the following service to your existing docker-compose.yml file:

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  node-exporter:
    image: prom/node-exporter:latest 
    container_name: node-exporter
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /proc:/host/proc:ro  # Mount the proc directory from the host
      - /sys:/host/sys:ro  # Mount the sys directory from the host
      - /:/rootfs:ro  # Mount the root filesystem from the host
    command:
      - '--path.procfs=/host/proc'  # Path to the procfs directory
      - '--path.rootfs=/rootfs'  # Path to the root filesystem
      - '--path.sysfs=/host/sys'  # Path to the sysfs directory
      - '--collector.filesystem.mount-points-exclude=^/(sys|proc|dev|host|etc)($$|/)'  # Exclude certain filesystem mount points from collection
    expose:
      - 9100  # Expose ports from the container
    networks:  # Attach the service to the monitoring network
      - monitoring

Run docker-compose up -d to start Node Exporter in the background.

This setup will deploy Prometheus, Grafana, and Node Exporter containers, allowing you to monitor your environment easily.

Configurate Grafana Dashboard

Go to the Grafana URL provided in the Grafana setup step and log in using the credentials found in the docker-compose file.
Once logged in, navigate from the sidebar to Configuration -> Data Sources -> Add new Data Source. Search for Prometheus and select it. Fill in the following information:
Scroll down and click Save & Test. This will test the connection to your Prometheus server. You now have a data source configured for your system data in Grafana.
Go to the Dashboard section and create a new dashboard. Click on Import Dashboard.
Enter the ID of the dashboard you want to import. Since we are using the “Node Exporter Full” dashboard from Grafana, enter the ID “1860” and click Load.
Now you’ll see the amazing insights and visualizations provided by the “Node Exporter Full” dashboard in Grafana, giving you a comprehensive view of your system’s metrics.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have successfully set up a robust monitoring stack using Prometheus, Grafana, and node_exporter, orchestrated through Docker Compose. We configured Prometheus to scrape metrics from our system and Grafana to visualize these metrics in a dashboard. By following these steps, you now have a powerful monitoring solution for understanding the performance of your system, detecting anomalies, and optimizing resources. Monitoring is not just a task; it’s an essential part of system administration that helps you keep your systems running smoothly.