server-side

server-side example

The companion Prometheus + Grafana for host-agent. Brings you from "I just installed the agent on three boxes" to "I can see them on a dashboard" in two commands.

Run

cd examples/server-side
docker compose up -d

That's it. You now have:

• Prometheus at http://localhost:9090, accepting remote_write pushes on /api/v1/write, with the hosts_active recording rule loaded.
• Grafana at http://localhost:3000 (admin / admin), with the Prometheus datasource pre-wired (UID prometheus) and the Server Overview dashboard already provisioned.

Both bind to 127.0.0.1 only — put TLS in front of them if you expose them. Override the Grafana admin password via env:

GRAFANA_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 16) docker compose up -d

Point your host-agents at this Prometheus

On each host that's running host-agent, set the remote-write target to this box's address:

PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_URL=http://<your-prometheus-host>:9090/api/v1/write

The dashboard's host dropdown populates automatically as each agent sends its first push — no central config edits needed.

Customize

• Retention: change --storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d in docker-compose.yml.
• Auth on the receiver: bind Prometheus behind nginx / Caddy with basic or bearer auth; configure each host-agent with the matching PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_USERNAME / _PASSWORD or PROMETHEUS_REMOTE_WRITE_BEARER_TOKEN.
• External storage: swap the prometheus image for VictoriaMetrics or Mimir if you outgrow single-node TSDB. The dashboard works unchanged — it only depends on Prometheus query syntax.
• Extra dashboards: drop more JSON into grafana/dashboards/ and Grafana picks them up on its next provisioning cycle (60s).