Installing Prometheus Exporter

The Installing Prometheus Exporters guide includes the following sections:

Overview

The Prometheus exporter is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit. It is used for collecting metrics from an operating system and exporting them to a graphic user interface.

The Installing Prometheus Exporters guide describes how to installing the following exporters:

  • The Node_exporter - the basic exporter used for displaying server metrics, such as CPU and memory.

  • The Nvidia_exporter - shows Nvidia GPU metrics.

  • The process_exporter - shows data belonging to the server’s running processes.

For information about more exporters, see Exporters and Integration

Adding a User and Group

Adding a user and group determines who can run processes.

You can add users with the following command:

$ sudo groupadd --system prometheus

You can add groups with the following command:

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

Cloning the Prometheus GIT Project

After adding a user and group you must clone the Prometheus GIT project.

You can clone the Prometheus GIT project with the following command:

$ git clone http://gitlab.sq.l/IT/promethues.git prometheus

Note

If you experience difficulties cloning the Prometheus GIT project or receive an error, contact your IT department.

The following shows the result of cloning your Prometheus GIT project:

$ prometheus/
$ ├── node_exporter
$    └── node_exporter
$ ├── nvidia_exporter
$    └── nvidia_exporter
$ ├── process_exporter
$    └── process-exporter_0.5.0_linux_amd64.rpm
$ ├── README.md
$ └── services
$     ├── node_exporter.service
$     └── nvidia_exporter.service

Installing the Node Exporter and NVIDIA Exporter

After cloning the Prometheus GIT project you must install the node_exporter and NVIDIA_exporter.

To install the node_exporter and NVIDIA_exporter:

  1. Navigate to the cloned folder:

    $ cd prometheus
    
  2. Copy node_exporter and nvidia_exporter to /usr/bin/.

    $ sudo cp node_exporter/node_exporter /usr/bin/
    $ sudo cp nvidia_exporter/nvidia_exporter /usr/bin/
    
  3. Copy the services files to the services folder:

    $ sudo cp services/node_exporter.service /etc/systemd/system/
    $ sudo cp services/nvidia_exporter.service /etc/systemd/system/
    
  4. Reload the services so that they can be run:

    $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    
  5. Set the permissions and group for both service files:

    $ sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/bin/node_exporter
    $ sudo chmod u+x /usr/bin/node_exporter
    $ sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/bin/nvidia_exporter
    $ sudo chmod u+x /usr/bin/nvidia_exporter
    
  6. Start both services:

    $ sudo systemctl start node_exporter && sudo systemctl enable node_exporter
    
  7. Set both services to start automatically when the server is booted up:

    $ sudo systemctl start nvidia_exporter && sudo systemctl enable nvidia_exporter
    
  8. Verify that the server’s status is active (running):

    $ sudo systemctl status node_exporter && sudo systemctl status nvidia_exporter
    

    The following is the correct output:

    $  node_exporter.service - Node Exporter
    $    Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    $    Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-12-11 12:28:31 IST; 1 months 5 days ago
    $  Main PID: 28378 (node_exporter)
    $    CGroup: /system.slice/node_exporter.service
    $
    $  nvidia_exporter.service - Nvidia Exporter
    $    Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/nvidia_exporter.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    $    Active: active (running) since Wed 2020-01-22 13:40:11 IST; 31min ago
    $  Main PID: 1886 (nvidia_exporter)
    $    CGroup: /system.slice/nvidia_exporter.service
    $            └─1886 /usr/bin/nvidia_exporter
    

Installing the Process Exporter

After installing the node_exporter and Nvidia_exporter you must install the process_exporter.

To install the process_exporter:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • For CentOS, run sudo rpm -i process_exporter/process-exporter_0.5.0_linux_amd64.rpm.

    • For Ubuntu, run sudo dpkg -i process_exporter/process-exporter_0.6.0_linux_amd64.deb.

  2. Verify that the process_exporter is running:

    $ sudo systemctl status process-exporter
    
  3. Set the process_exporter to start automatically when the server is booted up:

    $ sudo systemctl enable process-exporter
    

Opening the Firewall Ports

After installing the process_exporter you must open the firewall ports for the following services:

  • node_exporter - port: 9100

  • nvidia_exporter - port: 9445

  • process-exporter - port: 9256

Note

This procedure is only relevant if your firwall is running.

To open the firewall ports:

  1. Run the following command:

    $ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=<PORT NUMBER>/tcp --permanent
    
  2. Reload the firewall:

    $ sudo firewall-cmd --reload
    
  3. Verify that the changes have taken effect.