Step 1: Complete the prerequisites Step 2: Add users and local system directories to your Lightsail instance Step 3: Download the Prometheus binary packages Step 4: Configure Prometheus Step 5: Start Prometheus Step 6: Start Node Exporter Step 7: Configure Prometheus with the Node Exporter data collector

Tutorial: Install Prometheus on a Linux-based Lightsail instance

Prometheus is an open source time series monitoring tool for managing a variety of system resources and applications. It provides a multidimensional data model, the ability to query the collected data, and detailed reporting and data visualization through Grafana.

By default, Prometheus is enabled to collect metrics on the server where it is installed. With the help of node exporters, metrics can be collected from other resources like web servers, containers, databases, custom applications, and other third-party systems. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configure Prometheus with node exporters on a Lightsail instance. For a full list of available exporters, see Exporters and integrations in the Prometheus documentation.

Contents

Step 1: Complete the prerequisites
Step 2: Add users and local system directories to your Lightsail instance
Step 3: Download the Prometheus binary packages
Step 4: Configure Prometheus
Step 5: Start Prometheus
Step 6: Start Node Exporter
Step 7: Configure Prometheus with the Node Exporter data collector

Step 1: Complete the prerequisites

Before you can install Prometheus on an Amazon Lightsail instance, you must do the following:

Create an instance in Lightsail. We recommend using the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS blueprint for your instance. For more information, see Create an instance in Amazon Lightsail.
Create and attach a static IP address to your new instance. For more information, see Create a static IP address in Amazon Lightsail.
Open ports 9090 and 9100 on the firewall of your new instance. Prometheus requires ports 9090 and 9100 to be open. For more information, see Adding and editing instance firewall rules in Amazon Lightsail.

Step 2: Add users and local system directories to your Lightsail instance

Complete the following procedure to connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH and add users and system directories. This procedure creates the following Linux user accounts:

prometheus – This account is used for installing and configuring the server environment.
exporter – This account is used to configure the node_exporter extension.

These user accounts are created for the sole purpose of management and therefore do not require additional user services or permissions beyond the scope of this setup. In this procedure, you also create directories for storing and managing the files, service settings, and data that Prometheus uses to monitor resources.

Sign in to the Lightsail console.
On your instance management page, under the Connect tab, choose Connect using SSH.
After you're connected, enter the following commands one by one to create two Linux user accounts, prometheus and exporter.
```
sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false prometheus
```
```
sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false exporter
```

Enter the following commands one by one to create local system directories.


sudo mkdir /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus


sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus


sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

Step 3: Download the Prometheus binary packages

Complete the following procedure to download the Prometheus binary packages to your Lightsail instance.

Open a web browser on your local computer and browse to the Prometheus downloads page.
At the top of the page, for the Operating system dropdown, select linux. For Architecture, select amd64.
Choose or right-click the Prometheus download link that appears, and copy the link address to a text file on your computer. Do the same for the node_exporter download link that appears. You will use both copied addresses later in this procedure.
Connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH.
Enter the following command to change directories to your home directory.
```
cd ~
```
Enter the following command to download the Prometheus binary packages to your instance.
```
curl -LO prometheus-download-address
```
Replace prometheus-download-address with the address that you copied earlier in this procedure. The command should look like the following example when you add the address.
```
curl -LO https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.37.0/prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
```
Enter the following command to download the node_exporter binary packages to your instance.
```
curl -LO node_exporter-download-address
```
Replace node_exporter-download-address with the address that you copied in the previous step of this procedure. The command should look like the following example when you add the address.
```
curl -LO https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.3.1/node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
```
Run the following commands one by one to extract the contents of the downloaded Prometheus and Node Exporter files.
```
tar -xvf prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
```
```
tar -xvf node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
```
Several subdirectories are created after the contents of the downloaded files are extracted.

Enter the following commands one by one to copy the prometheus and promtool extracted files to the /usr/local/bin programs directory.


sudo cp -p ./prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64/prometheus /usr/local/bin


sudo cp -p ./prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64/promtool /usr/local/bin

Enter the following command to change the ownership of the prometheus and promtool files to the prometheus user that you created earlier in this tutorial.
```
sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/prom*
```
Enter the following commands one by one to copy the consoles and console_libraries subdirectories to /etc/prometheus. The -r option performs a recursive copy of all directories within the hierarchy.
```
sudo cp -r ./prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64/consoles /etc/prometheus
```
```
sudo cp -r ./prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64/console_libraries /etc/prometheus
```
Enter the following commands one by one to change the ownership of the copied files to the prometheus user that you created earlier in this tutorial. The -R option performs a recursive ownership change for all of the files and directories within the hierarchy.
```
sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/consoles
```
```
sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/console_libraries
```
Enter the following commands one by one to copy the configuration file prometheus.yml to the /etc/prometheus directory and change the ownership of the copied file to the prometheus user that you created earlier in this tutorial.
```
sudo cp -p ./prometheus-2.37.0.linux-amd64/prometheus.yml /etc/prometheus
```
```
sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
```
Enter the following command to copy the node_exporter file from the ./node_exporter* subdirectory to the /usr/local/bin programs directory.
```
sudo cp -p ./node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64/node_exporter /usr/local/bin
```
Enter the following command to change the ownership of the file to the exporter user that you created earlier in this tutorial.
```
sudo chown exporter:exporter /usr/local/bin/node_exporter
```

Step 4: Configure Prometheus

Complete the following procedure to configure Prometheus. In this procedure, you open and edit the prometheus.yml file, which contains various settings for the Prometheus tool. Prometheus establishes a monitoring environment based on the settings that you configure in the file.

Connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH.
Enter the following command to create a backup copy of the prometheus.yml file before you open and edit it.
```
sudo cp /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml.backup
```
Enter the following command to open the prometheus.yml file using Vim.
```
sudo vim /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
```
Following are a few important parameters that you might want to configure in the prometheus.yml file:
- scrape_interval — Located under the global header, this parameter defines the time interval (in seconds) for how often Prometheus will collect or scrape metric data for a given target. As indicated by the global tag, this setting is universal for all resources that Prometheus monitors. This setting also applies for exporters, unless an individual exporter provides a different value that overrides the global value. You can keep this parameter set to its current value of 15 seconds.
- job_name — Located under the scrape_configs header, this parameter is a label that identifies exporters in the result set of a data query or visual display. You can specify the value of a job name to best reflect the resources that are being monitored in your environment. For example, you can label a job for managing a website as business-web-app, or you can label a database as mysql-db-1. In this initial setup, you are only monitoring the Prometheus server, so you can keep the current prometheus value.
- targets — Located under the static_configs header, the targets setting uses an ip_addr:port key-value pair to identify the location where a given exporter is running. You will change the default setting in steps 4–7 of this procedure.
Note
For this initial setup, you don't need to configure the alerting and rule_files parameters.
In the prometheus.yml file that you have open in Vim, press the I key to enter insert mode in Vim.
Scroll and find the targets parameter located under the static_configs header.
Change the default setting to <ip_addr>:9090. Replace <ip_addr> with the static IP address of the instance. The modified parameter should look like the following example.
Press the Esc key to exit insert mode, and type :wq! to save your changes and quit Vim.
(Optional) If something went wrong, enter the following command to replace the prometheus.yml file with the backup that you created earlier in this procedure.
```
sudo cp /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml.backup /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
```

Step 5: Start Prometheus

Complete the following procedure to start the Prometheus service on your instance.

Connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH.
Enter the following command to start the Prometheus service.
```
sudo -u prometheus /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
```
The command line outputs details on the startup process and other services. It should also indicate that the service is listening on port 9090.

If the service doesn't start, see the Step 1: Complete the prerequisites section of this tutorial for information about creating instance firewall rules to allow traffic on this port. For other errors, review the prometheus.yml file to confirm that there are no syntax errors.
After the running service is validated, press Ctrl+C to stop it.
Enter the following command to open the systemd configuration file in Vim. This file is used to start Prometheus.
```
sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service
```
Insert the following lines into the file.
```
[Unit]
Description=PromServer
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 /var/lib/prometheus/ \
--web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles \
--web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
The preceding instructions are used by the Linux systemd service manager to start Prometheus on the server. When invoked, Prometheus runs as the prometheus user and references the prometheus.yml file for loading the configuration settings and storing the time series data in the /var/lib/prometheus directory. You can run man systemd from the command line to see more information about the service.
Press the Esc key to exit insert mode, and type :wq! to save your changes and quit Vim.
Enter the following command to load the information into the systemd service manager.
```
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
```
Enter the following command to restart Prometheus.
```
sudo systemctl start prometheus
```
Enter the following command to check the status of the Prometheus service.
```
sudo systemctl status prometheus
```
If the service launched properly, you receive an output similar to the following example.
Press Q to exit the status command.
Enter the following command to enable Prometheus to start when the instance is booted.
```
sudo systemctl enable prometheus
```
Open a web browser on your local computer and go to the following web address to view the Prometheus management interface.
```
http:<ip_addr>:9090
```
Replace <ip_addr> with the static IP address of your Lightsail instance. You should see a dashboard similar to the following example.

Step 6: Start Node Exporter

Complete the following procedure to start the Node Exporter service.

Connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH.
Enter the following command to create a systemd service file for node_exporter using Vim.
```
sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service
```
Press the I key to enter insert mode in Vim.
Add the following lines of text into the file. This will configure node_exporter with monitoring collectors for CPU load, file system usage, and memory resources.
```
[Unit]
Description=NodeExporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=exporter
Group=exporter
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node_exporter --collector.disable-defaults \
--collector.meminfo \
--collector.loadavg \
--collector.filesystem

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
Note
These instructions disable default machine metrics for Node Exporter. For a complete list of metrics available for Ubuntu, see the Prometheus node_exporter man page in the Ubuntu documentation.
Press the Esc key to exit insert mode, and type :wq! to save your changes and quit Vim.
Enter the following command to reload the systemd process.
```
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
```
Enter the following command to start the node_exporter service.
```
sudo systemctl start node_exporter
```
Enter the following command to check the status of the node_exporter service.
```
sudo systemctl status node_exporter
```
If the service launched successfully, you receive an output similar to the following example.
Press Q to exit the status command.
Enter the following command to enable Node Exporter to start when the instance is booted.
```
sudo systemctl enable node_exporter
```

Step 7: Configure Prometheus with the Node Exporter data collector

Complete the following procedure to configure Prometheus with the Node Exporter data collector. You do this by adding a new job_name parameter for node_exporter in the prometheus.yml file.

Connect to your Lightsail instance using SSH.
Enter the following command to open the prometheus.yml file using Vim.
```
sudo vim /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
```
Press the I key to enter insert mode in Vim.
Add the following lines of text into the file, below the existing - targets: ["<ip_addr>:9090"] parameter.
```
- job_name: "node_exporter"

static_configs:
- targets: ["<ip_addr>:9100"]
```
The modified parameter in the prometheus.yml file should look like the following example.

Note the following:
- Node Exporter listens to port 9100 for the prometheus server to scrape the data. Confirm that you followed the steps for creating instance firewall rules as outlined in the Step 1: Complete the prerequisites section of this tutorial.
- As with the configuration of the prometheus job_name, replace <ip_addr> with the static IP address that's attached to your Lightsail instance.
Press the Esc key to exit insert mode, and type :wq! to save your changes and quit Vim.
Enter the following command to restart the Prometheus service so that the changes to the configuration file can take effect.
```
sudo systemctl restart prometheus
```
Enter the following command to check the status of the Prometheus service.
```
sudo systemctl status prometheus
```
If the service restarted properly, you receive output similar to the following.
Press Q to exit the status command.
Open a web browser on your local computer and go to the following web address to view the Prometheus management interface.
```
http:<ip_addr>:9090
```
Replace <ip_addr> with the static IP address of your Lightsail instance. You should see a dashboard similar to the following example.
In the main menu, choose the Status dropdown and select Targets.

On the next screen, you should see two targets. The first target is for the node_exporter metrics collector job, and the second target is for the prometheus job.

The environment is now properly set up for collecting metrics and monitoring the server.

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