Monitoring Your Server with Prometheus, Node Exporter, and

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to set up a comprehensive monitoring stack for your server using Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana. We’ll use Docker to simplify the deployment and Nginx as a reverse proxy. Let’s dive in!

Prerequisites

An Ubuntu server (we’re using a Lightsail instance).
Docker installed.
Nginx installed and configured as a reverse proxy for your application.

1: Setting Up Docker Compose

First, create a directory for your monitoring setup:

mkdir -p ~/monitoring

cd ~/monitoring

Create a network for Prometheus and Grafana to communicate:

docker network create monitoring

Create a Docker Compose file (docker-compose.yml) with the following content:

version: ‘3’

services:
node-exporter:
image: prom/node-exporter
container_name: node-exporter
ports:
– 9100:9100
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
– monitoring

prometheus:
image: prom/prometheus
container_name: prometheus
volumes:
– ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
ports:
– 9090:9090
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
– monitoring

grafana:
image: grafana/grafana
container_name: grafana
ports:
– 3000:3000
environment:
– GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL=%(protocol)s://%(domain)s:%(http_port)s/grafana/
– GF_SERVER_SERVE_FROM_SUB_PATH=false
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
– monitoring

networks:
monitoring:
driver: bridge

Next, create the Prometheus configuration file (prometheus.yml):

global:
scrape_interval: 15s

scrape_configs:
– job_name: ‘node-exporter’
static_configs:
– targets: [‘node-exporter:9100’]

2: Launch the Monitoring Stack

Run the Docker Compose stack:

docker-compose up -d

3: Configure Nginx as a Reverse Proxy

Open your Nginx configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default #use your domain instead of default if required.

Add the following server blocks for Prometheus and Grafana:

server {
listen 80;

server_name your-domain.com; # Replace with your domain

location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080; # Your application
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}

location /grafana/ { #subpath to use grafana
proxy_pass http://localhost:3000/;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}
}

Save and close the file, then test the Nginx configuration:

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

4: Access Grafana

Open your browser and go to http://your-domain.com/grafana/.
Log in with the default credentials (user: admin, password: admin).
Make sure to change the password when prompted.

Add Prometheus as a Data Source

Go to Connections > Data Sources.
Click on “Add data source” and select Prometheus.
Set the URL to http://prometheus:9090 and click “Save & Test”.

Create Dashboards

You can now import pre-built dashboards or create your own. A good starting point is the Node Exporter Full dashboard.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully set up a powerful monitoring stack with Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana using Docker, integrated with Nginx as a reverse proxy. Now you can monitor your server’s performance and health in real-time. Happy monitoring!