Installing Netdata on CentOS 7

Netdata is a rising star in the field of real-time system metrics monitoring. Compared with other tools of the same kind, Netdata:

• Monitors and renders various system metrics in real time, such as CPU, memory, disk I/O, network traffic, system processes, Apache/Nginx status, MySQL status, Postfix message queue, and others.
• Runs on most Linux distributions.
• Is highly optimized to use minimal CPU, memory, and disk I/O.
• Provide stunning real-time metrics graphics in an intuitive web interface.

In this article, I will demonstrate how to install Netdata on a Vultr CentOS 7 server instance.

Prerequisites

Before reading further, you should have deployed a Vultr CentOS 7 server instance and logged in as a non-root user with sudo privileges.

Step 1: Update the system

For security purposes, update the system to the latest stable status using YUM:

sudo yum update -y && sudo reboot

After the reboot finishes, log in with the same sudo user.

Step 2: Install dependencies

In order to install Netdata, you need to install the dependencies below:

sudo yum install zlib-devel libuuid-devel libmnl-devel gcc make git autoconf autogen automake pkgconfig
sudo yum install curl jq nodejs

Step 3: Install Netdata

Install Netdata with the official installation script:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/firehol/netdata.git --depth=1
cd netdata
sudo ./netdata-installer.sh

During the installation process, Press ENTER to start the installation.

If no errors occur during installation, the Netdata daemon will start.

Step 4: Modify firewall rules

Before you can access Netdata’s web interface, you need to modify firewall rules to allow traffic on port 19999, the default communication port of Netdata:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=19999/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step 5: View the monitoring interface

Confirm the installation by opening your web browser and visiting the monitoring interface of Netdata:

http://<your-Vultr-server-IP>:19999

Step 6: Setup systemd service unit for netdata

For convenience, put Netdata under the control of systemd:

sudo yum install psmisc
sudo killall netdata
sudo cp ~/netdata/system/netdata.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start netdata.service
sudo systemctl enable netdata.service

That’s it. To further configure Netdata, edit its configuration file:

sudo vi /etc/netdata/netdata.conf

You can also view the current configuration at:

http://<your-Vultr-server-IP>:19999/netdata.conf