Node Exporter

Exposes hardware and operating system metrics for Linux/Unix systems. Node Exporter collects low-level system metrics directly from the host, providing visibility into infrastructure performance.

It has nothing to do with Node.js. Despite the name, "Node" refers to a machine or server (a node in the infrastructure), not the JavaScript runtime. Node Exporter is completely independent of Node.js.

Provides key system metrics. It exports metrics such as:

• CPU usage and load averages
• Memory usage and swap
• Disk I/O and filesystem statistics
• Network traffic and errors

These metrics are essential for monitoring server health, resource usage, and capacity planning.

Runs as a standalone binary on each host. Node Exporter is typically installed and executed on every machine you want to monitor. It runs as a lightweight service and exposes metrics via HTTP.

Add it to scrape_configs in Prometheus. By default, Node Exporter listens on port 9100. You simply add each host (e.g., server1:9100) as a target in your Prometheus configuration.

Node Exporter is a core component for infrastructure monitoring when using Prometheus.