grafana-prometheus-node

Grafana + Prometheus + Node (VPS or VMs)

This stack provides basic monitoring and visualization using Prometheus and Grafana. Prometheus collects metrics and Grafana renders dashboards from Prometheus data.

How it works

flowchart LR
    Node([VPS / VM]) --> NodeExp[Node Exporter :9100]
    NodeExp --> Prometheus[Prometheus :9090]
    Prometheus --> Grafana[Grafana :3000]

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1. Prometheus starts with local scrape config from prometheus/prometheus.yml.
2. Prometheus stores time-series metrics in persistent storage.
3. Grafana auto-loads a Prometheus datasource via provisioning.
4. You query and visualize metrics in Grafana dashboards.

Stack details in this repo

• Prometheus image: prom/prometheus:latest

• Grafana image: grafana/grafana:latest

• Prometheus UI: http://<host-ip>:9090

• Grafana UI: http://<host-ip>:3000

• Persistent data:

  • prometheus_data:/prometheus
  • grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana

• Mounted config:

  • ./prometheus/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
  • ./grafana/provisioning:/etc/grafana/provisioning

Recommended Grafana Dashboard

This setup works well with Grafana dashboard ID: 1860 (Node Exporter Full).

• Dashboard: https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/1860
• Use it to monitor:
  • CPU usage
  • Memory usage
  • Disk I/O
  • Network traffic
  • System load

How to import

1. Open Grafana → Dashboards → Import
2. Enter ID: 1860
3. Select Prometheus datasource
4. Click Import

Environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env:

• GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER
• GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD
• GF_USERS_ALLOW_SIGN_UP

How to run

From the repository root:

cd grafana-prometheus-node
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d

Open:

• Prometheus: http://localhost:9090
• Grafana: http://localhost:3000

Useful commands

docker compose ps
docker compose logs -f
docker compose restart
docker compose down

Link VPS / VMs metrics (Node Exporter)

To monitor a VPS or VM, use Node Exporter on port 9100.

Install Node Exporter on your VPS/VM:

wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/latest/download/node_exporter-*.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Extract and run (example):

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

By default it exposes metrics on:

• http://<vps-ip>:9100/metrics

Prometheus scrape config

Update prometheus/prometheus.yml:

- job_name: "vps-vms"
  static_configs:
    - targets: ["vps-or-vm:9100"]

Guidelines:

• Replace vps-or-vm with your actual server IP or hostname.
• Ensure port 9100 is accessible (firewall/security group).
• Node Exporter must be running on the VPS/VM.
• Restart Prometheus after config changes:

docker compose restart prometheus

Notes

• Change default Grafana credentials before exposing this stack.
• You can add additional scrape targets in prometheus/prometheus.yml.
• Using Grafana dashboard 1860 is strongly recommended for system-level monitoring.