Node Exporter

Now that Prometheus is running, install an exporter on each target machine so Prometheus can collect host-level metrics. Node Exporter is the Prometheus exporter for hardware- and OS-level metrics on Linux systems. It exposes metrics over HTTP for Prometheus to scrape. In this guide you’ll:

Download the Node Exporter release for your platform
Extract and run it locally (or as a service)
Verify metrics on port 9100
Add the target to your Prometheus scrape_configs

Download Node Exporter

Open the Prometheus downloads page: https://prometheus.io/download/ and locate the Node Exporter section. Choose the release and OS/architecture that match your host (prefer the latest stable release), then copy the download URL. Download the tarball with wget (replace the URL with the one you copied; the example uses v1.3.1):

# example (replace with the URL for your chosen release and architecture)
wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.3.1/node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz

A screenshot of a software downloads page listing Prometheus components (node_exporter, promlens, pushgateway, statsd_exporter) with tables showing file names, OS/arch, sizes and SHA256 checksums. The page displays download links and release/version info for each exporter.

Extract and run

Extract the archive, change into the extracted directory, and start Node Exporter:

tar xvf node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
cd node_exporter-1.3.1.linux-amd64
./node_exporter

When Node Exporter starts successfully it logs that it is listening on :9100 (the default port). Example log output:

ts=2022-09-05T16:51:59.947Z caller=node_exporter.go:199 level=info msg="Listening on" address=:9100
ts=2022-09-05T16:51:59.947Z caller=tls_config.go:195 level=info msg="TLS is disabled." http2=false

Verify the metrics endpoint locally:

curl http://localhost:9100/metrics

Sample excerpt of metric output (truncated):

# TYPE node_timex_tick_seconds gauge
node_timex_tick_seconds 0.01

# HELP node_udp_queues Number of allocated memory in the kernel for UDP datagrams in bytes.
# TYPE node_udp_queues gauge
node_udp_queues{ip="v4",queue="rx"} 0
node_udp_queues{ip="v4",queue="tx"} 0
node_udp_queues{ip="v6",queue="rx"} 0
node_udp_queues{ip="v6",queue="tx"} 0

# HELP node_uname_info Labeled system information as provided by the uname system call.
# TYPE node_uname_info gauge
node_uname_info{domainname="(none)",machine="x86_64",nodename="user2",release="5.15.0-52-generic",sysname="Linux",version="#58-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 13 08:03:55 UTC 2022"} 1

# HELP process_cpu_seconds_total Total user and system CPU time spent in seconds.
# TYPE process_cpu_seconds_total counter
process_cpu_seconds_total 0

# TYPE process_max_fds gauge
process_max_fds 1048576

You can also open http://localhost:9100/metrics in a browser if you are on the same machine or have network access. Quick reference:

Item	Value
Default metrics endpoint	`http://<node>:9100/metrics`
Default port	`9100`
Metrics path	`/metrics`
Run mode	foreground for testing; use systemd for production

Add Node Exporter to Prometheus scrape config

Add a scrape job for Node Exporter in your prometheus.yml. Replace the placeholder with the hostname or IP of the machine running Node Exporter:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'node_exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['`<node-exporter-host>`:9100']

Examples:

Local host: targets: ['localhost:9100']
Remote host: targets: ['192.0.2.10:9100']

For fleets of hosts, use file-based service discovery or a configuration management tool to generate the target list.

For production deployments run Node Exporter as a dedicated system service and user so it is managed across reboots. Create a node_exporter user, copy the binary to a system path (for example /usr/local/bin/node_exporter), and use a systemd unit like the example below.

# /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service
[Unit]
Description=Prometheus Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=node_exporter
Group=node_exporter
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node_exporter

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now node_exporter

That’s it — Node Exporter will now expose host metrics for Prometheus to scrape. Links and references:

Introduction

Observability Fundamentals

Prometheus Fundamentals

PromQL

Dashboarding & Visualization

Application Instrumentation

Service Discovery

Push Gateway

Alerting

Monitoring Kubernetes

Conclusion

Scaling & Long Term Storage

Download Node Exporter

Extract and run

Add Node Exporter to Prometheus scrape config

Watch Video

​Download Node Exporter

​Extract and run

​Add Node Exporter to Prometheus scrape config

Watch Video

Download Node Exporter

Extract and run

Add Node Exporter to Prometheus scrape config