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Prometheus: Installing the Blackbox exporter

Blackbox exporter is a tool to probe remote targets over a variety of protocols. Or from the Blackbox exporter Github page: The blackbox exporter allows blackbox probing of endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP and ICMP. In practice I use it to monitor connectivity to websites. Through the Blackbox exporter I can capture HTTPS response times, SSL certificate statuses, and some additional website metrics. Additionally using the Alertmanager tool it’s possible to create alerts based on HTTPS response times, HTTPS status codes, or SSL certificate status.

November 16, 2021 Read
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Prometheus: Installing the Node exporter

Previously we installed Node Exporter on our Prometheus host. However in practice you will likely be installing Node Exporter on another VPS or other remote machine. The process is largely similar to installing it locally with a few extra steps. These directions go through the process I use for installing Node Exporter on remote virtual private servers running Ubuntu 20.04. To begin we’ll assume you have access to a remote machine/VPS through SSH or other ’terminal’ access with ‘sudo’ permissions.

November 9, 2021 Read
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Prometheus: Getting started with Prometheus and Grafana

Prometheus is an open-source application created for systems monitoring and alerting. The Prometheus server application can produce limited visualizations of data that it collects and stores from Exporters which send it the data. Prometheus and it’s Exporters are good for measuring numerical values over time, things such as: Data Storage/Memory Usage, Network Stats, and Process Monitoring. An example of Prometheus Black Box Exporter data displayed through a Grafana dashboard

November 5, 2021 Read