Installing Prometheus Agent on a Public Cloud instance

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KB0074634

Installing Prometheus Agent on a Public Cloud instance


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Objective

Prometheus is a monitoring system and time series database. You can install and use its agent on OVHcloud Public Cloud instances to gather metrics from your servers and applications.

Find out how to install the Prometheus Node Exporter or Windows Exporter agent on an OVHcloud Public Cloud instance.

OVHcloud provides services for which you are responsible with regard to their configuration and management. It is therefore your responsibility to ensure that they function correctly.

This guide is designed to assist you in common tasks as much as possible. Nevertheless, we recommend contacting a specialist service provider or reaching out to our community if you experience any issues.

Requirements

Instructions

Follow these steps to install the Prometheus Node Exporter or Windows Exporter agent on your OVHcloud Public Cloud instance to collect metrics.

Step 1: Connecting to your instance

Connect to your instance via SSH:

ssh root@<INSTANCE_IP>

Replace <INSTANCE_IP> with the public IP address of your instance.

On Windows, use PowerShell with SSH or an SSH client such as PuTTY if you prefer using a command-line interface.

For Windows Server with GUI, you can also use RDP (Remote Desktop).

Step 2: Updating your system

Make sure your system packages are up to date:

  • For Debian/Ubuntu
  • For CentOS/RHEL
  • For Windows
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo yum update -y

No system update is required specifically for Windows Exporter. Optionally, ensure your system is up to date via Windows Update.

Step 3: Creating a Prometheus user (Optional)

Creating a dedicated user for Node Exporter improves security on Linux, but is optional for Windows Exporter on Windows.

  • For Linux
  • For Windows
sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false prometheus
  • This creates a user with limited permissions to run Node Exporter.
  • Recommended for production to reduce security risks.
  • You can then start Node Exporter under this user via systemd.

Note: Run these PowerShell commands inside the VM via SSH. 

New-LocalUser "prometheus" -NoPassword -Description "User for Node Exporter"

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Users" -Member "prometheus"

Note: Windows Exporter can run under the current user. Creating a dedicated user is optional for stricter access control.

Step 4: Downloading Node Exporter / Windows Exporter

  • For Linux
  • For Windows (via SSH/PowerShell on the VM)
# Replace VERSION with the latest release, e.g., 1.10.2
VERSION="1.10.2"
wget https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter/releases/download/v$VERSION/node_exporter-$VERSION.linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar xvf node_exporter-$VERSION.linux-amd64.tar.gz
cd node_exporter-$VERSION.linux-amd64

Invoke-WebRequest requires PowerShell 3.0 or later. 

mkdir C:\windows_exporter
cd C:\windows_exporter

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter/releases/download/v0.31.3/windows_exporter-0.31.3-amd64.msi" -OutFile "windows_exporter.msi"

Everything is done directly inside the VM, no need to transfer files from your local machine.

Step 5: Running Node Exporter / Windows Exporter

  • For Linux
  • For Windows (via SSH/PowerShell)
./node_exporter
  • Optional: set up a systemd service to run Node Exporter automatically.
  • If using the dedicated prometheus user, ensure the service runs under this account.
msiexec /i windows_exporter.msi ENABLED_COLLECTORS=cpu,cs,logical_disk,net,os,service,system,textfile /qn
  • On Desktop or Core, you can run it directly in PowerShell or configure it as a Windows service.

It is possible to customize collectors; see the official documentation for the full list.

Step 6: Verifying Node Exporter / Windows Exporter

Node Exporter listens on port 9100 by default.

Windows Exporter listens on port 9182 by default.

Replace with 9100 for Linux or 9182 for Windows.

The command below allows you to monitor metrics such as CPU, memory, disk, and network usage:

curl http://<INSTANCE_IP>:<PORT>/metrics

On Windows Desktop, you can also open a browser to check. However, via SSH/PowerShell, use curl or Invoke-WebRequest.

Step 7: Firewall/Security rules (OVHcloud)

Ensure that the port used by the exporter is open in both the VM firewall and your OVHcloud Security Group.

Restrict access to only your Prometheus server for security.

  • For Linux (Debian/Ubuntu with UFW)
  • For Windows
sudo ufw allow 9100/tcp
sudo ufw status

Note: If UFW shows Status: inactive, it means the firewall is not enabled on the VM. The port rule is added but not enforced.

Security is mainly handled by your OVHcloud Security Group.

If you want UFW active, first allow SSH to avoid being locked out:

sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw status

Open port 9182 in Windows Firewall:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Windows Exporter" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=9182

You can also verify rules via:

netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all | findstr "9182"

Step 8: Connecting Node Exporter / Windows Exporter to Prometheus

1. Edit Prometheus config on your Prometheus server (prometheus.yml):

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'node_exporter' # or 'windows_exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['<INSTANCE_IP>:9100'] # or 9182 for Windows Exporter

2. Reload Prometheus:

  • For Linux
  • For Windows
sudo systemctl reload prometheus
sc stop prometheus
sc start prometheus

3. Node Exporter / Windows Exporter metrics from your OVHcloud instance should now appear in Prometheus.

Go further

Official Node Exporter documentation

Creating and configuring a security group in Horizon

Join our community of users.