The article show how to install Prometheus Node Exporter on Ubuntu Linux as a systemd service and to add it to Prometheus config.

Download Node exporter binary from official site:

#wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v1.1.2/node_exporter-1.1.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Extract and move Node Exporter binary to /usr:

#gunzip node_exporter-1.1.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
#tar -xvf ./node_exporter-1.1.2.linux-amd64.tar
#mv node_exporter*/node_exporter /usr/local/bin

Create user for Node Exporter:

#useradd -rs /bin/false node_exporter

Create systemd unit file - vim /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service - with following content:

[Unit]
Description=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

Restart systemd process and start node_exporter:

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

Now you should access node metrics at:

http://<server-IP>:9100/metrics

Configure Prometheus. Add following to prometheus.yaml and restart it:

  - job_name: 'node_exporter1'
    static_configs:
    - targets: ['localhost:9100']