How to install node exporter on Linux

Installing node exporter on a Linux host exposes CPU, memory, filesystem, network, and kernel metrics for Prometheus. It is the usual first exporter to add when a server needs host-level monitoring instead of only application metrics.

Ubuntu and Debian repositories provide the prometheus-node-exporter package for managed Linux installs. That package installs the exporter binary, ships a systemd unit named prometheus-node-exporter.service, and keeps updates under the operating system package manager instead of a manually copied upstream tarball.

By default, node exporter listens on port 9100 and serves metrics from /metrics. Keep that endpoint reachable only from Prometheus or a trusted monitoring network, then add the scrape configuration after the local endpoint returns host metrics.

1. Open a terminal with sudo privileges.
2. Refresh the package index.

   $ sudo apt update

3. Install the node exporter package.

   $ sudo apt install prometheus-node-exporter

   Ubuntu and Debian package the service as prometheus-node-exporter. The upstream Prometheus download page may list a newer tarball release, but the distro package keeps the service unit and security updates under APT.

4. Enable and start the packaged service.

   $ sudo systemctl enable --now prometheus-node-exporter

   Related: How to manage the Prometheus service with systemctl

5. Confirm the service is active.

   $ systemctl is-active prometheus-node-exporter
   active

   If the service is not active, inspect sudo journalctl -u prometheus-node-exporter before changing the Prometheus scrape configuration.

   Related: How to manage the Prometheus service with systemctl

6. Check the installed binary version.

   $ prometheus-node-exporter --version
   node_exporter, version 1.10.2 (branch: debian/sid, revision: 1.10.2-1)
     build user:       team+pkg-go@tracker.debian.org
     build date:       20251231-00:04:52
     go version:       go1.25.0
     platform:         linux/amd64
     tags:             unknown

   The exact version and platform line depend on the distribution release and CPU architecture.

7. Check the local metrics endpoint response.

   $ curl --silent --include http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics
   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Type: text/plain; version=0.0.4; charset=utf-8; escaping=underscores
   ##### snipped #####

8. Confirm node metrics appear in the endpoint body.

   $ curl http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics
   # HELP go_gc_duration_seconds A summary of the wall-time pause duration in garbage collection cycles.
   # TYPE go_gc_duration_seconds summary
   go_gc_duration_seconds{quantile="0"} 0.00001175
   go_gc_duration_seconds{quantile="0.25"} 0.00001175
   go_gc_duration_seconds{quantile="0.5"} 0.000014874
   ##### snipped #####
   node_uname_info{domainname="(none)",machine="x86_64",nodename="linux-host",release="6.12.76",sysname="Linux",version="#1 SMP Wed May 13 14:27:36 UTC 2026"} 1

   A local 200 OK response and node_ metrics confirm that node exporter is ready for a Prometheus scrape job. Allow inbound TCP 9100 only from the Prometheus server or monitoring network when remote scraping is required.
   Related: How to configure Prometheus to scrape node exporter