CentOS-Linux4U: Install Prometheus and Grafana on Ubuntu 20.04

Monitoring your infrastructure is essential for performance, reliability, and capacity planning.

In this guide, we’ll set up Prometheus (for metrics collection) and Grafana (for visualization) on Ubuntu 20.04, then connect Rocky Linux 8 and Ubuntu clients using Node Exporter.

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🧩 What is Prometheus?

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring tool developed by SoundCloud, now part of the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation).
It collects metrics from systems and applications and stores them in a time-series database, allowing you to create alerts and analyze performance.

📊 What is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source data visualization platform.
It connects to Prometheus (and many other sources) to visualize data in interactive dashboards and graphs.

⚙️ Step 1: Update Ubuntu 20.04 Server

# apt update &&  apt upgrade -y

🧠 Step 2: Install Prometheus on Ubuntu 20.04

1️⃣ Create Prometheus user and directories

# useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false prometheus
# mkdir /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

2️⃣ Download Prometheus

# cd /tmp
# wget https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.53.0/prometheus-2.53.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
# tar xvf prometheus-2.53.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
# cd prometheus-2.53.0.linux-amd64

3️⃣ Move binaries and set permissions

#  mv prometheus /usr/local/bin/
#  mv promtool /usr/local/bin/
#  mv consoles /etc/prometheus/
# mv console_libraries /etc/prometheus/
# mv prometheus.yml /etc/prometheus/
# chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus
# chown prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/prometheus /usr/local/bin/promtool

🧾 Step 3: Create Prometheus Systemd Service

# tee /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[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.console.templates=/etc/prometheus/consoles \
    --web.console.libraries=/etc/prometheus/console_libraries

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Then enable and start Prometheus:

# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl enable prometheus
# systemctl start prometheus
# systemctl status prometheus

Access it in your browser:
👉 http://gra01.darole.org:9090/

📈 Step 4: Install Grafana on Ubuntu 20.04

1️⃣ Add Grafana APT repository

# apt install -y apt-transport-https software-properties-common curl gpg
# mkdir -p /usr/share/keyrings/
# curl -fsSL https://packages.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/grafana.gpg
# echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/grafana.gpg] https://packages.grafana.com/oss/deb stable main" | 
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list

2️⃣ Install Grafana

# apt update
# apt install grafana -y

3️⃣ Enable and Start Grafana

# systemctl enable grafana-server
# systemctl start grafana-server

Open Grafana in a browser:
👉 http://gra01.darole.org:3000/

(Default credentials: admin / admin)

🔗 Step 5: Connect Grafana to Prometheus

Login to Grafana → http://gra01.darole.org:3000
Go to Connections → Data Sources → Add Data Source
Choose Prometheus
In URL → http://gra01.darole.org:9090
Click Save & Test

🖥️ Step 6: Install Node Exporter on Clients

➤ On Rocky Linux 8 & Ubuntu Clients

Run these commands on each client system (both Rocky 8 and Ubuntu):

Download Node Exporter
# cd /tmp
# wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.8.2/node_exporter-1.8.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
# tar xvf node_exporter-1.8.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
# mv node_exporter-1.8.2.linux-amd64/node_exporter /usr/local/bin/

Create a user
# useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false node_exporter

Create systemd service
# tee /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Prometheus Node Exporter
After=network.target

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

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

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

Default metrics endpoint →
👉 http://lamp01.darole.org:9100/metrics

🔧 Step 7: Add Clients to Prometheus Server

Edit Prometheus config on your main Ubuntu 20.04 server:

root@gra01:~# vi /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

Add client targets at the bottom:

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

  - job_name: "node_exporter"
    static_configs:
      - targets:

          - "lamp01.darole.org:9100"
          - "zap01.darole.org:9100"

Replace the IPs with your Rocky 8 and Ubuntu client IPs.

Then restart Prometheus:

# sudo systemctl restart prometheus

✅ Step 8: Verify Monitoring Setup

Prometheus Targets:
👉 http://gra01.darole.org:9090/targets
Grafana Dashboards:
👉 http://gra01.darole.org:3000

You should now see metrics from all your Ubuntu and Rocky Linux clients visualized beautifully in Grafana.

🎯 Summary

Component	Description	Default Port
Prometheus	Metrics collection & storage	9090
Grafana	Data visualization	3000
Node Exporter	System metrics on clients	9100

🧠 Optional: Prebuilt Dashboards

In Grafana:

Go to Create → Import Dashboard
Use official Node Exporter dashboard ID: 1860

🏁 Conclusion

You’ve successfully:

Installed Prometheus and Grafana on Ubuntu 20.04
Added Rocky 8 and Ubuntu client nodes
Configured Node Exporter for monitoring
Set up Grafana dashboards

Your monitoring stack is now production-ready! 🎉

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CentOS-Linux4U

Install Prometheus and Grafana on Ubuntu 20.04