How to Monitor a Server with Prometheus and Grafana

To monitor a Linux server with Prometheus and Grafana, install prometheus and prometheus-node-exporter with sudo apt install (Ubuntu/Debian), add Grafana from Grafana’s APT repository, then in Grafana add a Prometheus data source at http://localhost:9090 and import dashboard ID 1860 (Node Exporter Full). node_exporter exposes system metrics on port 9100, Prometheus stores them, and Grafana draws the charts on port 3000.

Difficulty	Time	Works on	Needs
Intermediate	30 minutes	Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04, Debian 12 / 13	sudo access; 1 GB or more RAM recommended

Before you start

Connect with SSH as a user with sudo. Root users can leave out sudo.
How the parts fit together:

Component	Job	Default port
node_exporter	Reads CPU, memory, disk, network and file system stats and publishes them as metrics	`9100`
Prometheus	Collects (“scrapes”) metrics every few seconds and stores them as time series	`9090`
Grafana	Dashboards and graphs on top of Prometheus	`3000`

All three listen on every network interface by default. This guide binds them to localhost and reaches them through an SSH tunnel, so nothing is exposed.
On AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, Grafana installs from Grafana’s RPM repository, but Prometheus and node_exporter are not in the base repositories. Use the official release binaries from prometheus.io/download or run them with Docker.

How to install Prometheus and node_exporter

Install the packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt install prometheus prometheus-node-exporter

Both services start automatically. Ubuntu 24.04 ships Prometheus 2.45 and node_exporter 1.7.

Check the scrape config

The packaged /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml already scrapes Prometheus itself and node_exporter:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'prometheus'
    scrape_interval: 5s
    scrape_timeout: 5s
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9090']
  - job_name: node
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9100']

After any edit, validate the file:

promtool check config /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Keep both on localhost

Edit /etc/default/prometheus and set:

ARGS="--web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:9090"

Edit /etc/default/prometheus-node-exporter and set:

ARGS="--web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:9100"

Restart

sudo systemctl restart prometheus prometheus-node-exporter

Check node_exporter answers:

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics | grep -E "^node_load1 |^node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes"

node_load1 0.19
node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes 7.133995008e+09

How to install Grafana

Add Grafana's signing key and repository

sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https wget gnupg
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.asc https://apt.grafana.com/gpg-full.key
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.asc
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.asc] https://apt.grafana.com stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list

Install Grafana OSS

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grafana

Bind Grafana to localhost

Open /etc/grafana/grafana.ini, find the [server] section and set:

[server]
http_addr = 127.0.0.1

Remove the ; in front of the line if there is one; a leading ; means the line is a comment.

Start Grafana and enable it at boot

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server.service

How to connect Grafana to Prometheus

Open an SSH tunnel

On your own computer:

ssh -L 3000:localhost:3000 alex@203.0.113.10

Leave it open and browse to http://localhost:3000.

Add the Prometheus data source

Go to Connections, add a new connection, search for Prometheus and select Prometheus data source, then add a new data source. Set Prometheus server URL to http://localhost:9090 and click Save & test. You should see Successfully queried the Prometheus API.

Import the Node Exporter Full dashboard

Click Dashboards, then New > Import dashboard. Enter 1860, click Load, select your Prometheus data source and click Import.

The dashboard shows CPU, load, memory, disk space, disk I/O and network traffic for the node job. Some panels (systemd units, process counts) stay empty unless node_exporter runs with --collector.systemd --collector.processes; add them to ARGS in /etc/default/prometheus-node-exporter if you want those panels.

Don’t open ports 9090, 9100 or 3000 to the whole internet. Prometheus and node_exporter have no login by default, and an exposed Grafana with the default password is taken over quickly. If you need remote access without a tunnel, put Grafana behind Nginx with HTTPS and allow only your IP in UFW.

How to monitor more servers

Install prometheus-node-exporter on each extra server, let it listen on its private or public address, and allow port 9100 only from your Prometheus server’s IP in that server’s firewall. Then add the target to /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml on the Prometheus server:

  - job_name: node
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9100', '198.51.100.20:9100']

Validate with promtool check config and run sudo systemctl reload prometheus.

How to check it worked

sudo ss -tlnp | grep -E ":(9090|9100|3000)\b"

All three lines should show 127.0.0.1. In Prometheus (tunnel port 9090, then http://localhost:9090), open Status > Targets: both jobs should be UP.

Frequently asked questions

How long does Prometheus keep data?

15 days unless you change it. Set --storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d in ARGS in /etc/default/prometheus to keep 30 days, and check you have the disk space.

Can Prometheus send alerts?

Yes, through Alertmanager (sudo apt install prometheus-alertmanager) and alerting rules. Grafana also has its own alerting. For a simple “server is down” email, an external checker is easier: see email alerts when your server goes down.

Should I run Prometheus on the server I monitor?

It is fine for one server. If that server goes down, so does your monitoring, so for several servers run Prometheus and Grafana on a separate small server.

Is there a simpler option?

Netdata gives live dashboards with one install script and no configuration.

VPS and dedicated server guides

Every server guide in one place.

Set up Netdata

One-script real-time dashboards.

Email alerts when your server goes down

Uptime checks from outside.

Nginx as a reverse proxy

Publish Grafana with HTTPS.

Set up a firewall with UFW

Keep metric ports closed.

Checked against the official Prometheus and Grafana installation documentation and the Node Exporter Full dashboard page on 4 November 2026; Prometheus and node_exporter packages, config check and listen flags tested on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. The Grafana steps follow Grafana’s documentation and were not run. Commands can differ on other distributions or releases.

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Last Updated: November 2026

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How to Monitor a Server with Prometheus and Grafana

Before you start

How to install Prometheus and node_exporter

How to install Grafana

How to connect Grafana to Prometheus

How to monitor more servers

How to check it worked

Frequently asked questions

How long does Prometheus keep data?

Can Prometheus send alerts?

Should I run Prometheus on the server I monitor?

Is there a simpler option?

VPS and dedicated server guides

Set up Netdata

Email alerts when your server goes down

Nginx as a reverse proxy

Set up a firewall with UFW

Need Extra Help?

Save on Your Hosting

​Before you start

​How to install Prometheus and node_exporter

​How to install Grafana

​How to connect Grafana to Prometheus

​How to monitor more servers

​How to check it worked

​Frequently asked questions

​How long does Prometheus keep data?

​Can Prometheus send alerts?

​Should I run Prometheus on the server I monitor?

​Is there a simpler option?

​Related guides

VPS and dedicated server guides

Set up Netdata

Email alerts when your server goes down

Nginx as a reverse proxy

Set up a firewall with UFW

​Need Extra Help?

​Save on Your Hosting

Before you start

How to install Prometheus and node_exporter

How to install Grafana

How to connect Grafana to Prometheus

How to monitor more servers

How to check it worked

Frequently asked questions

How long does Prometheus keep data?

Can Prometheus send alerts?

Should I run Prometheus on the server I monitor?

Is there a simpler option?

Related guides

Need Extra Help?

Save on Your Hosting