Install Prometheus and node_exporter on Debian 11|10

How To Install Prometheus on Debian 11| Debian 10 Linux?. Prometheus is a free and open source monitoring system that enables you to collect time-series data metrics from any target systems. Its web interface enables you to perform powerful queries, visualize collected data, and to configure alerts.

In this guide, we will cover the installation of Prometheus and node_exporter on Debian 11 / Debian 10. Since this is a binary installation method, there is no required dependency to continue with the setup.

Step 1: Create Prometheus system user / group

We’ll create a dedicated Prometheus system user and group. The  -r or –system option is used for this purpose.

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

This creates a system user which doesn’t need /bin/bash shell, that’s why we used -s /sbin/nologin.

Step 2: Create configuration and data directories

Prometheus needs directories to store data and configuration files. Create all required directories using the commands below.

sudo mkdir /var/lib/prometheus
for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo mkdir -p /etc/prometheus/${i}; done

Step 3: Download and Install Prometheus on Debian 11 / Debian 10

Let’s download the latest release of Prometheus archive and extract it to get binary files. You can check releases from Prometheus releases Github page.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install wget curl
mkdir -p /tmp/prometheus && cd /tmp/prometheus
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/prometheus/prometheus/releases/latest|grep browser_download_url|grep linux-amd64|cut -d '"' -f 4|wget -qi -

Extract the file.

tar xvf prometheus*.tar.gz
cd prometheus*/

Move the prometheus binary files to /usr/local/bin/

Since /usr/local/bin/ is in your PATH, let’s copy binary files to it.

sudo mv prometheus promtool /usr/local/bin/

Move prometheus configuration template to /etc directory.

sudo mv prometheus.yml  /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Also move consoles and console_libraries to /etc/prometheus directory:

sudo mv consoles/ console_libraries/ /etc/prometheus/
cd ~/
rm -rf /tmp/prometheus

Step 4: Create/Edit a Prometheus configuration file.

Prometheus configuration file will be located under /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml.

cat /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

The default configuration file looks similar to below.

# my global config
global:
  scrape_interval:     15s # Set the scrape interval to every 15 seconds. Default is every 1 minute.
  evaluation_interval: 15s # Evaluate rules every 15 seconds. The default is every 1 minute.
  # scrape_timeout is set to the global default (10s).

# Alertmanager configuration
alerting:
  alertmanagers:
  - static_configs:
    - targets:
      # - alertmanager:9093

# Load rules once and periodically evaluate them according to the global 'evaluation_interval'.
rule_files:
  # - "first_rules.yml"
  # - "second_rules.yml"

# A scrape configuration containing exactly one endpoint to scrape:
# Here it's Prometheus itself.
scrape_configs:
  # The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from this config.
  - job_name: 'prometheus'

    # metrics_path defaults to '/metrics'
    # scheme defaults to 'http'.

    static_configs:
    - targets: ['localhost:9090']

Step 5: Create a Prometheus systemd Service unit file

To be able to manage Prometheus service with systemd, you need to explicitly define this unit file.

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service<<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Prometheus
Documentation=https://prometheus.io/docs/introduction/overview/
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=prometheus
Group=prometheus
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
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 \
  --web.listen-address=0.0.0.0:9090 \
  --web.external-url=

SyslogIdentifier=prometheus
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Change directory permissions.

Change the ownership of these directories to Prometheus user and group.

for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/${i}; done
for i in rules rules.d files_sd; do sudo chmod -R 775 /etc/prometheus/${i}; done
sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /var/lib/prometheus/

Reload systemd daemon and start the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start prometheus
sudo systemctl enable prometheus

Confirm that the service is running.

$ systemctl status prometheus
● prometheus.service - Prometheus
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2021-08-31 19:14:07 UTC; 5s ago
       Docs: https://prometheus.io/docs/introduction/overview/
   Main PID: 1890 (prometheus)
      Tasks: 8 (limit: 2340)
     Memory: 19.1M
        CPU: 66ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/prometheus.service
             └─1890 /usr/local/bin/prometheus --config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml --storage.tsdb.path=/var/lib/prometheus --web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles --web.console.lib>

Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.186Z caller=head.go:816 component=tsdb msg="Replaying on-disk memory mappable chunks if any"
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.187Z caller=head.go:830 component=tsdb msg="On-disk memory mappable chunks replay completed" duration=15.972µs
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.187Z caller=head.go:836 component=tsdb msg="Replaying WAL, this may take a while"
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.187Z caller=head.go:893 component=tsdb msg="WAL segment loaded" segment=0 maxSegment=0
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.188Z caller=head.go:899 component=tsdb msg="WAL replay completed" checkpoint_replay_duration=63.191µs wal_repl>
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.190Z caller=main.go:839 fs_type=EXT4_SUPER_MAGIC
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.190Z caller=main.go:842 msg="TSDB started"
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.191Z caller=main.go:969 msg="Loading configuration file" filename=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.192Z caller=main.go:1006 msg="Completed loading of configuration file" filename=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml>
Aug 31 19:14:07 debian-bullseye-01 prometheus[1890]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:14:07.192Z caller=main.go:784 msg="Server is ready to receive web requests."

Access Prometheus web interface on URL http://[ip_hostname]:9090.

Step 6: Install node_exporter onDebian 11 / Debian 10

Download node_exporter archive.

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/latest| grep browser_download_url|grep linux-amd64|cut -d '"' -f 4|wget -qi -

Extract downloaded file and move the binary file to /usr/local/bin.

tar -xvf node_exporter*.tar.gz
cd  node_exporter*/
sudo cp node_exporter /usr/local/bin

Confirm installation.

$ node_exporter --version
node_exporter, version 1.3.0 (branch: HEAD, revision: c65f870ef90a4088210af0319498b832360c3366)
  build user:       [email protected]
  build date:       20211118-16:34:14
  go version:       go1.17.3
  platform:         linux/amd64

Create node_exporter service.

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Node Exporter
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=prometheus
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node_exporter

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

Reload systemd and start the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start node_exporter
sudo systemctl enable node_exporter

Confirm status:

$ systemctl status node_exporter.service
● node_exporter.service - Node Exporter
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2021-08-31 19:16:11 UTC; 7s ago
   Main PID: 1969 (node_exporter)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 2340)
     Memory: 3.2M
        CPU: 10ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/node_exporter.service
             └─1969 /usr/local/bin/node_exporter

Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=thermal_zone
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=time
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=timex
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=udp_queues
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=uname
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=vmstat
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=xfs
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:115 collector=zfs
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=node_exporter.go:199 msg="Listening on" address=:9100
Aug 31 19:16:11 debian-bullseye-01 node_exporter[1969]: level=info ts=2021-08-31T19:16:11.906Z caller=tls_config.go:191 msg="TLS is disabled." http2=false

Once we confirm the service to be running, let’s add the node_exporter to the Prometheus server.

sudo vim /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Add new job under scrape_config section.

scrape_configs:
  # The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from this config.
  - job_name: "prometheus"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]
  - job_name: 'node_exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9100']

Restart Prometheus:

sudo systemctl restart prometheus

You now have Prometheus installed onDebian 11 / Debian 10 Linux system.