Set Up Prometheus Server without Kubernetes

To taste Hue prometheus metrics, you may set up a Prometheus server to scrape the metrics endpoint /metrics on a Hue server (which may not need to run in docker or Kubernetes). Here is the set up example on Ubuntu 16.4.

Prerequisites: a Hue server running at localhost:8000.

1. Create a service user

   $ sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false prometheus
   

   ``

2. Create a directory in /etc for Prometheus’ configuration files and a directory in /var/lib for its data

   $ sudo mkdir /etc/prometheus
   $ sudo mkdir /var/lib/prometheus
   

   ``

3. Set the user and group ownership on the new directories to the prometheus user

   $ sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus
   $ sudo chown prometheus:prometheus /var/lib/prometheus
   

   ``

4. Download Prometheus binary from https://prometheus.io/download/

   $ cd ~/Downloads
   $ curl -LO https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.16.0/prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
   

   ``

5. Validate checksum value with download

   $ Sha256sum prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
   

   ``

6. Unpack the downloaded archive

   $ tar xvf prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
   

   ``

7. Copy the two binaries to the /usr/local/bin directory

   $ sudo cp prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64/prometheus /usr/local/bin/
   $ sudo cp prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64/promtool /usr/local/bin/
   

   ``

8. Copy the consoles and console_libraries directories to /etc/prometheus.

   $ sudo cp -r prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64/consoles /etc/prometheus
   $ sudo cp -r prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64/console_libraries /etc/prometheus
   

   ``

9. Set the user and group ownership on the directories to the prometheus user. Using the -R flag will ensure that ownership is set on the files inside the directory as well.

   $ sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/consoles
   $ sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus/console_libraries
   

   ``

10. Remove the leftover files from your downloads folder

    $ rm -rf prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz prometheus-2.16.0.linux-amd64
    

11. Create a configuration file named prometheus.yml

    $ vi /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
    

    Content of prometheus.yml, port 8000 is your Hue server port, and change it if needed.

    global:
      scrape_interval: 15s
    
    scrape_configs:
      - job_name: 'prometheus'
        scrape_interval: 5s
        static_configs:
          - targets: ['localhost:9090']
    
      - job_name: 'hue'
        scrape_interval: 5s
        static_configs:
          - targets: ['localhost:8000']
    

12. Set the user and group ownership on the configuration file to the prometheus user

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

13. Create a new systemd service file.

    $ vi /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service
    

    Content of service file

    [Unit]
    Description=Prometheus
    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
    

14. To use the newly created service, reload and start systemd.

    $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    $ sudo systemctl start prometheus
    

When you open the browser at localhost:9090, you will see the Prometheus server page like the screenshot below.

Any feedback or questions? Feel free to comment here or on the Forum or @gethue and quick start SQL querying!

Ying Chen from the Hue Team