Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system that collects and stores time-series metrics. It scrapes targets at regular intervals, stores data locally, and supports a powerful query language called PromQL.

Grafana is an open-source visualization platform that connects to data sources like Prometheus and displays metrics as dashboards with graphs, tables, and alerts. It provides a web UI for building and sharing dashboards.

How much resources does this monitoring stack use?

Prometheus uses approximately 200-500 MB RAM depending on metrics volume. Grafana uses about 100-200 MB. Together they fit on a Raff Tier 2 VM ($9.99/month) alongside lightweight services.

Can I monitor multiple servers with one Prometheus instance?

Yes. Install Node Exporter on each server you want to monitor, then add each target to Prometheus's scrape configuration. One Prometheus instance can monitor dozens of servers.

Install Prometheus and Grafana on Ubuntu 24.04

In this tutorial, you’ll install Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana on a Raff Ubuntu 24.04 VM, then verify live server monitoring through a Grafana dashboard.

Prometheus collects and stores time-series metrics, Node Exporter exposes Linux system metrics, and Grafana visualizes those metrics in browser dashboards. This tutorial installs Prometheus 3.5 LTS, Node Exporter, and Grafana on a single Raff VM with Prometheus kept private on localhost and Grafana exposed through port 3000. Raff Technologies has supported 10,000+ VM deployments across its compute platform, and Raff Linux VMs can be provisioned in 60 seconds with NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth.

This tutorial was tested on a Raff VM with 2 vCPU, 4 GB DDR5 RAM, 80 GB NVMe storage, running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Tested on Raff infrastructure by Aybars Altınyay, platform engineer at Raff Technologies.

Prerequisites:

A Raff Ubuntu 24.04 VM
SSH access with sudo privileges
A terminal connected to the VM
Port 3000/tcp available for Grafana browser access
Basic familiarity with Linux services and firewall rules

📌 Note: This tutorial keeps Prometheus and Node Exporter private to the VM. Grafana is the browser-facing monitoring interface.

Step 1 — Update system packages

Update the Ubuntu package index and install the tools required for downloading binaries, verifying archives, and configuring repositories:

Bash

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl wget tar nano gnupg ca-certificates apt-transport-https software-properties-common ufw

Verify that package upgrades are complete:

Bash

sudo apt list --upgradable

Expected output:

Text

Listing... Done

Step 2 — Create Prometheus system users

Create dedicated system users and directories for Prometheus and Node Exporter:

Bash

sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin prometheus
sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin node_exporter

sudo mkdir -p /etc/prometheus
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/prometheus

Set ownership for the Prometheus data directory:

Bash

sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

Verify that the users and directories exist:

Bash

getent passwd prometheus
getent passwd node_exporter
ls -ld /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

Expected output includes:

Text

prometheus:x:
node_exporter:x:
prometheus prometheus /etc/prometheus
prometheus prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

Step 3 — Install Prometheus 3.5 LTS

Download Prometheus 3.5.3 LTS for Linux AMD64:

Bash

cd /tmp

PROMETHEUS_VERSION="3.5.3"

wget "https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v${PROMETHEUS_VERSION}/prometheus-${PROMETHEUS_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz"

Verify the archive checksum:

Bash

echo "8c30b9d99664e39b0363c0ba54fab30a7958e9d3de27246bf26ed85e6cfb8946  prometheus-${PROMETHEUS_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c -

Expected output:

Text

prometheus-3.5.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz: OK

Extract the archive:

Bash

tar xvf "prometheus-${PROMETHEUS_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
cd "prometheus-${PROMETHEUS_VERSION}.linux-amd64"

Install the Prometheus binaries:

Bash

sudo cp prometheus promtool /usr/local/bin/
sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/prometheus /usr/local/bin/promtool

Install the console libraries:

Bash

sudo cp -r consoles console_libraries /etc/prometheus/
sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/consoles /etc/prometheus/console_libraries

Verify the installed version:

Bash

prometheus --version
promtool --version

Expected output includes:

Text

prometheus, version 3.5.3
promtool, version 3.5.3

Step 4 — Configure Prometheus

Create the Prometheus configuration file:

Bash

sudo nano /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Paste this configuration:

Yaml

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s
  evaluation_interval: 15s

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "prometheus"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["127.0.0.1:9090"]

  - job_name: "node_exporter"
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["127.0.0.1:9100"]

Set file ownership:

Bash

sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Validate the Prometheus configuration:

Bash

promtool check config /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Expected output:

Text

SUCCESS: /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml is valid prometheus config file syntax

Step 5 — Create the Prometheus systemd service

Create the Prometheus service file:

Bash

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service

Paste this service definition:

Ini

[Unit]
Description=Prometheus Monitoring
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=prometheus
Group=prometheus
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/prometheus \
  --config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml \
  --storage.tsdb.path=/var/lib/prometheus \
  --web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:9090 \
  --web.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles \
  --web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries

Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd, start Prometheus, and enable it at boot:

Bash

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now prometheus

Verify that Prometheus is running:

Bash

sudo systemctl status prometheus --no-pager

Expected output includes:

Text

Active: active (running)

Verify the Prometheus API locally:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/-/ready

Expected output:

Text

Prometheus Server is Ready.

Step 6 — Install Node Exporter

Download Node Exporter 1.11.1 for Linux AMD64:

Bash

cd /tmp

NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION="1.11.1"

wget "https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v${NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION}/node_exporter-${NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz"

Verify the archive checksum:

Bash

echo "9f5ea48e5bc7b656f8a91a32e7d7deb89f70f73dabd0d974418aca15f37d6810  node_exporter-${NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c -

Expected output:

Text

node_exporter-1.11.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz: OK

Extract and install the binary:

Bash

tar xvf "node_exporter-${NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION}.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
sudo cp "node_exporter-${NODE_EXPORTER_VERSION}.linux-amd64/node_exporter" /usr/local/bin/
sudo chown node_exporter:node_exporter /usr/local/bin/node_exporter

Verify the installed version:

Bash

node_exporter --version

Expected output includes:

Text

node_exporter, version 1.11.1

Step 7 — Create the Node Exporter systemd service

Create the Node Exporter service file:

Bash

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service

Paste this service definition:

Ini

[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 \
  --web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:9100

Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd, start Node Exporter, and enable it at boot:

Bash

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

Verify that Node Exporter is running:

Bash

sudo systemctl status node_exporter --no-pager

Expected output includes:

Text

Active: active (running)

Verify that Node Exporter exposes local metrics:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics | head

Expected output includes metric lines such as:

Text

# HELP
# TYPE

Step 8 — Verify Prometheus scrape targets

Restart Prometheus so it scrapes both configured targets:

Bash

sudo systemctl restart prometheus

Query the Prometheus targets API:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets | grep -o '"health":"up"' | wc -l

Expected output:

Text

Verify each target by name:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets | grep -E '"job":"prometheus"|"job":"node_exporter"|"health":"up"'

Expected output includes both jobs and health":"up" entries.

Step 9 — Install Grafana

Install Grafana from the official APT repository:

Bash

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

Add the stable Grafana repository:

Bash

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.asc] https://apt.grafana.com stable main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list

Install Grafana OSS:

Bash

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y grafana

Start Grafana and enable it at boot:

Bash

sudo systemctl enable --now grafana-server

Verify that Grafana is running:

Bash

sudo systemctl status grafana-server --no-pager

Expected output includes:

Text

Active: active (running)

Verify the local Grafana HTTP service:

Bash

curl -I http://127.0.0.1:3000/login

Expected output includes:

Text

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Step 10 — Configure UFW firewall rules

Allow SSH and Grafana access, while keeping Prometheus and Node Exporter private on localhost:

Bash

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 3000/tcp
sudo ufw deny 9090/tcp
sudo ufw deny 9100/tcp
sudo ufw --force enable

Verify the firewall status:

Bash

sudo ufw status numbered

Expected output includes:

Text

22/tcp     ALLOW IN
3000/tcp   ALLOW IN
9090/tcp   DENY IN
9100/tcp   DENY IN

Open Grafana in your browser:

Text

http://your-server-ip:3000

Text

Username: admin
Password: admin

Grafana prompts you to change the admin password after the first login. Set a strong password before continuing.

Grafana login page on Ubuntu 24.04 after installation

Visible state check: Grafana loads in the browser and the login page appears on port 3000.

Step 11 — Connect Grafana to Prometheus

In Grafana, open:

Text

Connections → Data sources → Add data source → Prometheus

Set the Prometheus server URL to:

Text

http://127.0.0.1:9090

Click Save & test.

Expected visible result:

Text

Successfully queried the Prometheus API.

Grafana Prometheus data source showing a successful connection

Verify the data source from the VM as well:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/query?query=up

Expected output includes:

Json

"status":"success"

Step 12 — Import the Node Exporter dashboard

In Grafana, open:

Text

Dashboards → New → Import

Use dashboard ID:

Text

Select the Prometheus data source you created, then click Import.

Grafana dashboard import screen for Node Exporter Full

Visible state check: Grafana shows the dashboard import screen for the Node Exporter Full dashboard and lets you select the Prometheus data source.

Step 13 — Verify monitoring end to end

Open the imported Node Exporter dashboard in Grafana.

Set the time range to:

Text

Last 15 minutes

Refresh the dashboard.

Grafana Node Exporter dashboard showing live server metrics

End-to-end verification is complete when:

Prometheus is active under systemd
Node Exporter is active under systemd
Prometheus reports both prometheus and node_exporter targets as up
Grafana can query Prometheus successfully
The imported Node Exporter dashboard shows live CPU, memory, disk, and network metrics

Verify the services one final time from the VM:

Bash

systemctl is-active prometheus
systemctl is-active node_exporter
systemctl is-active grafana-server

Expected output:

Text

active
active
active

Cleanup (Optional)

Use this section only when you want to remove Prometheus, Node Exporter, Grafana, service files, metrics data, dashboards, and firewall rules from the VM.

⚠️ Warning: The following commands permanently delete Prometheus time-series data, Grafana dashboards, Grafana data sources, local Grafana users, and monitoring configuration files. Back up anything you need before proceeding.

Stop the services:

Bash

sudo systemctl stop prometheus
sudo systemctl stop node_exporter
sudo systemctl stop grafana-server

sudo systemctl disable prometheus
sudo systemctl disable node_exporter
sudo systemctl disable grafana-server

Remove Prometheus and Node Exporter binaries and service files:

Bash

sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/prometheus
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/promtool
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/node_exporter

sudo rm -f /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service
sudo rm -f /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service

sudo rm -rf /etc/prometheus
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/prometheus

Remove Grafana:

Bash

sudo apt remove --purge grafana -y
sudo rm -rf /etc/grafana
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/grafana
sudo rm -rf /var/log/grafana
sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list
sudo rm -f /etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.asc

Remove system users:

Bash

sudo userdel prometheus 2>/dev/null || true
sudo userdel node_exporter 2>/dev/null || true

Reload systemd:

Bash

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Remove the firewall rules:

Bash

sudo ufw delete allow 3000/tcp
sudo ufw delete deny 9090/tcp
sudo ufw delete deny 9100/tcp
sudo ufw status numbered

Verify that the services are removed:

Bash

systemctl status prometheus --no-pager
systemctl status node_exporter --no-pager
systemctl status grafana-server --no-pager

Expected output includes:

Text

Unit prometheus.service could not be found.
Unit node_exporter.service could not be found.
Unit grafana-server.service could not be found.

Troubleshooting

Prometheus fails to start

Cause: The Prometheus configuration file has invalid YAML or an incorrect scrape target.

Fix:

Bash

promtool check config /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
sudo journalctl -u prometheus --no-pager -n 80

Fix any reported configuration error, then restart Prometheus:

Bash

sudo systemctl restart prometheus
sudo systemctl status prometheus --no-pager

Expected output includes:

Text

Active: active (running)

Node Exporter target is down

Cause: Node Exporter is not running, or Prometheus cannot reach 127.0.0.1:9100.

Fix:

Bash

sudo systemctl status node_exporter --no-pager
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics | head

If Node Exporter is stopped, restart it:

Bash

sudo systemctl restart node_exporter
sudo systemctl restart prometheus

Verify the targets again:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets | grep -o '"health":"up"' | wc -l

Expected output:

Text

Grafana cannot connect to Prometheus

Cause: The Prometheus data source URL is wrong, or Prometheus is not running.

Fix:

Bash

systemctl is-active prometheus
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/query?query=up

Expected output includes:

Json

"status":"success"

In Grafana, set the Prometheus data source URL to:

Text

http://127.0.0.1:9090

Then click Save & test again.

Cause: Grafana is stopped, port 3000 is blocked, or the browser is using the wrong server IP.

Fix:

Bash

sudo systemctl status grafana-server --no-pager
sudo ufw status numbered
curl -I http://127.0.0.1:3000/login

If Grafana is stopped, restart it:

Bash

sudo systemctl restart grafana-server

If port 3000 is blocked, allow it:

Bash

sudo ufw allow 3000/tcp
sudo ufw reload

Open Grafana again:

Text

http://your-server-ip:3000

Dashboard panels show no data

Cause: The dashboard time range is too narrow, Prometheus has not scraped enough samples yet, or the dashboard is using the wrong data source.

Fix:

Bash

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/query?query=node_cpu_seconds_total | grep -o '"status":"success"'

Expected output:

Text

"status":"success"

In Grafana:

Set the time range to Last 15 minutes.
Click the refresh icon.
Confirm the dashboard uses the Prometheus data source created in Step 11.

Conclusion and next steps

You now have Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana running on a Raff Ubuntu 24.04 VM, with Prometheus and Node Exporter kept private and Grafana displaying live server metrics. If you have not deployed your Raff VM yet, you can spin one up in 60 seconds at rafftechnologies.com.

Next: How to Secure Your Ubuntu 24.04 Server

Guide: Firewall Best Practices for Cloud Servers

Guide: Cloud Server Monitoring Basics

Install Prometheus and Grafana Monitoring on Ubuntu 24.04

Prerequisites

Step 1 — Update system packages

Step 2 — Create Prometheus system users

Step 3 — Install Prometheus 3.5 LTS

Step 4 — Configure Prometheus

Step 5 — Create the Prometheus systemd service

Step 6 — Install Node Exporter

Step 7 — Create the Node Exporter systemd service

Step 8 — Verify Prometheus scrape targets

Step 9 — Install Grafana

Step 10 — Configure UFW firewall rules

Step 11 — Connect Grafana to Prometheus

Step 12 — Import the Node Exporter dashboard

Step 13 — Verify monitoring end to end

Cleanup (Optional)

Troubleshooting

Prometheus fails to start

Node Exporter target is down

Grafana cannot connect to Prometheus

Dashboard panels show no data

Conclusion and next steps

Put it into practice

Frequently asked questions

Install Prometheus and Grafana Monitoring on Ubuntu 24.04

Prerequisites

Step 1 — Update system packages

Step 2 — Create Prometheus system users

Step 3 — Install Prometheus 3.5 LTS

Step 4 — Configure Prometheus

Step 5 — Create the Prometheus systemd service

Step 6 — Install Node Exporter

Step 7 — Create the Node Exporter systemd service

Step 8 — Verify Prometheus scrape targets

Step 9 — Install Grafana

Step 10 — Configure UFW firewall rules

Step 11 — Connect Grafana to Prometheus

Step 12 — Import the Node Exporter dashboard

Step 13 — Verify monitoring end to end

Cleanup (Optional)

Troubleshooting

Prometheus fails to start

Node Exporter target is down

Grafana cannot connect to Prometheus

Grafana login page does not load

Dashboard panels show no data

Conclusion and next steps

Put it into practice

Frequently asked questions