🗂️ VPS › VPS Monitoring Setup  |  Updated: Nov 9, 2026

Install VPS Monitoring: Netdata or Prometheus + Grafana

Running a VPS without monitoring is like driving a car without a dashboard — you won't know you're running out of fuel until the engine stops. This guide walks you through installing Netdata (simple and fast) or Prometheus + Grafana (powerful and flexible) on Ubuntu VPS, step by step.

Why You Need VPS Monitoring

Without monitoring, you won't discover problems until your website is already down. The most common VPS failure scenarios:

• Disk full — website crashes, database stops writing, logs fail
• Out of RAM — OOM Killer randomly terminates processes
• CPU spike to 100% — possible cryptominer infection or DDoS attack
• Abnormal network traffic — potential data breach or bandwidth overage

Netdata vs Prometheus: Comparison

Feature	Netdata	Prometheus + Grafana
Installation difficulty	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very easy (1 command)	⭐⭐⭐ Multi-step setup
Real-time Dashboard	✅ Instant UI included	❌ Requires dashboard import
Flexibility	Moderate	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very high
Long-term storage	Limited (default 24h)	✅ Configurable retention
Resource usage	~50-100 MB RAM	~300-700 MB RAM
Multi-server	Netdata Cloud (free)	✅ Native support
Best for	Single VPS, beginners	Clusters, large production

Installing Netdata on Ubuntu

Free Ubuntu 20.04/22.04/24.04

Netdata provides a one-line installer that detects your OS and installs automatically:

# Update package list first
sudo apt update

# Install Netdata with one-line installer
wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh
sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh --stable-channel --no-updates

Verify the service is running:

sudo systemctl status netdata
# Should show: active (running)

Open the dashboard at http://YOUR_VPS_IP:19999 — real-time graphs appear immediately.

Alternative: Install via Package Manager

# Add Netdata repository
curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/netdata/netdata/script.deb.sh | sudo bash

# Install
sudo apt install netdata -y

# Enable and start
sudo systemctl enable netdata
sudo systemctl start netdata

Configuring Netdata (Alerts + Security)

Restrict Dashboard Access

Edit /etc/netdata/netdata.conf:

[web]
    # Allow only localhost (use SSH tunnel to access)
    bind to = 127.0.0.1
    # Or specify allowed IPs
    allow connections from = localhost 192.168.1.*

sudo systemctl restart netdata

Access Dashboard via SSH Tunnel

# Run on your local machine
ssh -L 19999:127.0.0.1:19999 user@YOUR_VPS_IP

# Then open in browser:
# http://localhost:19999

Configure Email Alerts

sudo nano /etc/netdata/health_alarm_notify.conf

SEND_EMAIL="YES"
DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_EMAIL="[email protected]"
SENDMAIL="$(which sendmail)"

Installing Prometheus + Node Exporter

Prometheus requires two components: Prometheus itself (metric storage) and Node Exporter (OS metric collection).

Step 1: Install 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
sudo cp node_exporter-1.8.2.linux-amd64/node_exporter /usr/local/bin/

# Create service user
sudo useradd -rs /bin/false node_exporter

Create systemd service file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/node_exporter.service

[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

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable node_exporter
sudo systemctl start node_exporter
# Verify: curl http://localhost:9100/metrics | head -20

Step 2: Install Prometheus

cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/download/v2.54.1/prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar xvf prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz

sudo useradd -rs /bin/false prometheus
sudo mkdir /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus
sudo cp prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64/prometheus /usr/local/bin/
sudo cp prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64/promtool /usr/local/bin/
sudo cp -r prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64/consoles /etc/prometheus
sudo cp -r prometheus-2.54.1.linux-amd64/console_libraries /etc/prometheus

Configure Prometheus:

sudo nano /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s

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

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

sudo chown -R prometheus:prometheus /etc/prometheus /var/lib/prometheus

Create systemd service:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/prometheus.service

[Unit]
Description=Prometheus
After=network.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/ \
  --storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d \
  --web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:9090

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

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

Installing Grafana and Connecting to Prometheus

Install Grafana

sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https software-properties-common wget

sudo wget -q -O /usr/share/keyrings/grafana.key https://apt.grafana.com/gpg.key
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/grafana.key] https://apt.grafana.com stable main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list

sudo apt update
sudo apt install grafana -y

sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
sudo systemctl start grafana-server

Access Grafana UI

Use SSH tunnel: ssh -L 3000:127.0.0.1:3000 user@VPS_IP then open http://localhost:3000

• Default credentials: Username admin, Password admin — change immediately!

Add Prometheus as Data Source

1. Go to Connections → Data sources → Add data source
2. Select Prometheus
3. URL: http://localhost:9090
4. Click Save & test

Import a Pre-built Dashboard

1. Go to Dashboards → Import
2. Enter ID: 1860 (Node Exporter Full — most popular dashboard)
3. Select the Prometheus data source
4. Click Import

You'll instantly have a beautiful dashboard showing CPU, RAM, Disk, and Network metrics.

Key Metrics to Monitor

Metric	Normal Range	Alert Threshold
CPU Usage	< 70%	> 90% for 5+ minutes
RAM Usage	< 80%	> 90% (OOM risk)
Disk Usage	< 70%	> 85% (plan cleanup)
Disk I/O Wait	Workload-dependent	> 20% sustained
Network In/Out	Normal usage baseline	Unusual spikes
Load Average	< number of CPUs	> 2× CPU core count
Swap Usage	0-20%	> 50% (insufficient RAM)

Setting Up Alerts

Netdata Alerts

Netdata includes many pre-configured alerts in /etc/netdata/health.d/. Customize thresholds as needed:

# /etc/netdata/health.d/cpu.conf
alarm: cpu_usage
on: system.cpu
lookup: average -1m percentage of user,system
units: %
warn: $this > 80
crit: $this > 95
info: CPU usage is high

Grafana Alerts

1. Open a panel → Edit → Alert
2. Set conditions (e.g., CPU > 90% for 5 minutes)
3. Add Contact Point (Email, Slack, LINE, Telegram)
4. Click Save

Securing Your Dashboard

Monitoring dashboards expose sensitive server information and must never be publicly accessible.

Method 1: SSH Tunnel (Recommended for single VPS)

# Access Netdata
ssh -L 19999:127.0.0.1:19999 user@VPS_IP &
# Access Grafana
ssh -L 3000:127.0.0.1:3000 user@VPS_IP &

Method 2: Nginx Reverse Proxy + Basic Auth

sudo apt install -y nginx apache2-utils
sudo htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.htpasswd admin

# /etc/nginx/sites-available/netdata
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name monitor.yourdomain.com;

    auth_basic "Monitoring";
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:19999;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }
}

Method 3: UFW Firewall Block

sudo ufw deny 19999
sudo ufw deny 9090
sudo ufw deny 3000
sudo ufw allow from YOUR_IP_ADDRESS to any port 19999

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Articles: Configure UFW Firewall on VPS • Create systemd Service • Grafana + Prometheus on VPS