VPS Monitoring and Alerting System Setup (2025) - Professional Prometheus + Grafana Solution

1. Node Exporter (Collector): Installed on the VPS, it is responsible for scraping system metrics (CPU usage, free disk space, network traffic, etc.).
2. Prometheus (Storage Center): Like a "monitoring recorder," it periodically pulls data from Node Exporter and stores it.
3. Grafana (Presentation Layer): The most beautiful monitoring dashboard, responsible for turning the cold, hard data in Prometheus into elegant charts and alert messages.

In 2025, we still strongly recommend deploying with Docker Compose. This keeps your system environment clean and lets you manage all components with a single command.

Create a directory and enter it:

mkdir vps-monitor && cd vps-monitor

Create docker-compose.yml:

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:v3.1.0 # 建议锁定版本
    container_name: prometheus
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
      - prometheus_data:/prometheus
    command:
      - '--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml'
    restart: always

  node-exporter:
    image: prom/node-exporter:v1.8.2
    container_name: node-exporter
    volumes:
      - /proc:/host/proc:ro
      - /sys:/host/sys:ro
      - /:/rootfs:ro
    command:
      - '--path.procfs=/host/proc'
      - '--path.sysfs=/host/sys'
      - '--collector.filesystem.ignored-mount-points=^/(sys|proc|dev|host|etc)($$|/)'
    restart: always

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:11.4.0
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - "3000:3000" # 仪表盘访问端口
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your_secure_password # 设置初始密码
    restart: always

volumes:
  prometheus_data:
  grafana_data:

In the same directory, create the prometheus.yml configuration file:

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s # 每 15 秒拉取一次数据

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'vps-status'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['node-exporter:9100'] # 指向同一个 Docker 网络里的采集器

Start all services:

docker compose up -d

1. Visit http://你的IP:3000 and log in with the password you just set.
2. Add a data source: In the left menu, go to Connections -> Data sources -> Add data source, and select Prometheus.
3. Fill in the address: Enter http://prometheus:9090 in the URL field, then click Save & test at the bottom.
4. Import a classic template:
   • Click the + icon in the top right -> Import.
   • Enter 1860 in the ID field (this is the most classic all-in-one Node Exporter dashboard).
   • Click Load, select the Prometheus data source you just created, and click Import.

Instantly, your VPS load, traffic, and disk IO will be displayed before you with stunning visualizations!

Looking at charts is not enough. We need the VPS to proactively notify us when something goes wrong.

In Grafana, you can set up Alerts directly:

1. Go to Grafana's Alerting -> Alert rules.
2. Create a rule: For example, set "disk space < 10%" or "average load > 0.8".
3. Configure a channel: You can connect a Telegram Bot or a Feishu/DingTalk webhook. That way, when VPS traffic spikes abnormally or the disk is almost full, your phone will receive a push notification immediately.

A server without monitoring is like running blind. With Prometheus + Grafana, you can not only see the server's status in real time, but also step in before a failure happens (for example, when memory keeps growing).

Pro Tip: If you have multiple VPS instances, simply run a separate node-exporter container on each of the other VPS instances, then add their IPs to the prometheus.yml on the main control node to achieve aggregated multi-machine monitoring.