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Installing Prometheus

Updated Nov 20, 2022 ·

Overview​

Prometheus can be installed on a virtual machine (VM) to monitor system performance and applications.

Pre-requisites​

  • A Linux-based VM with internet access
  • Basic understanding of Linux
  • Sufficient disk space to store metrics data.

Steps​

Login to the Prometheus server as root user and follow the steps below:

  1. Download the Prometheus tar file from the Prometheus official download page.

    wget https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.40.1/prometheus-2.40.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz

  2. Extract the downloaded file using tar:

    tar xvf prometheus-2.40.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
    cd prometheus-2.40.1.linux-amd64

  3. For security, create a dedicated user to run Prometheus:

    useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false prometheus

  4. Create directories for Prometheus data:

    mkdir -p /etc/prometheus
    mkdir /var/lib/prometheus

  5. Copy files to /usr/local/bin or a custom directory:

    cp prometheus promtool /usr/local/bin/
    cp prometheus.yml /etc/prometheus/

  6. Copy the directories consoles and console_libraries:

    cp -r consoles /etc/prometheus
    cp -r console_libraries /etc/prometheus

  7. Assign the correct permissions:

    chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/prometheus
    chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/promtool
    chown prometheus:prometheus /var/lib/prometheus
    chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus

  8. Define a systemd unit file to manage Prometheus as a service:

vi /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service

Add the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Prometheus 
Wants=network.target
After=network.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
  1. Reload systemd, start Prometheus, and enable it on boot:
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now prometheus
systemctl status prometheus

  1. Open a web browser and navigate to the link below:

    http://<your_vm_ip>:9090`

    To ensure it is working correctly, we can type up in the expression field and then hit Execute. It should return the following output, and a value of 1 at the right side. By default, Prometheus is configured to scrape and monitor its own metrics.