Netdata is an open-source monitoring tool that collects all possible metrics from systems and applications and displays them via a web-based interface. With Netdata, you can collect real-time metrics such as CPU usage, disk activity, bandwidth usage, website visits, etc. It helps a system administrator to diagnose anomalies and slowdowns in your system with insightful analysis. Netdata runs its collectors every second to collect rich data and store them in a database.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Netdata monitoring tool on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

• A fresh Arch Linux server on the Atlantic.Net Cloud Platform
• A root password configured on your server

Step 1 – Create Atlantic.Net Cloud Server

First, log in to your Atlantic.Net Cloud Server. Create a new server, choosing Arch Linux as the operating system with at least 2GB RAM. Connect to your Cloud Server via SSH and log in using the credentials highlighted at the top of the page.

Step 2 – Configure Repository

By default, the default repository is outdated in Arch Linux, so you will need to modify the default mirror list. You can do it by editing the mirrorlist configuration file:

nano  /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Remove all lines and add the following lines:

## Score: 0.7, United States
Server = http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.8, United States
Server = http://lug.mtu.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://mirror.nl.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.9, United Kingdom
Server = http://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.5, United Kingdom
Server = http://mirrors.manchester.m247.com/arch-linux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://archlinux.dcc.fc.up.pt/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.6, United States
Server = http://mirror.cs.pitt.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.7, United States
Server = http://mirrors.acm.wpi.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 6.8, United States
Server = http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 7.1, India
Server = http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 10.1, United States
Server = http://mirrors.xmission.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Save and close the file, then update all the package indexes with the following command:

pacman -Syu

Step 3 – Install Netdata Monitoring Tool

By default, the Netdata package is included in the Arch Linux default repository. You can install it easily with the following command.

pacman -S netdata

Once installed, start and enable the Netdata service using the following command.

systemctl start netdata
systemctl enable netdata

You can verify the Netdata service status with the following command.

systemctl status netdata

You will get the following output.

● netdata.service - Real time performance monitoring
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/netdata.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2023-01-04 23:03:23 EST; 34s ago
   Main PID: 73567 (netdata)
      Tasks: 54 (limit: 2362)
     Memory: 66.2M
     CGroup: /system.slice/netdata.service
             ├─73567 /usr/sbin/netdata -D
             ├─73569 /usr/bin/netdata --special-spawn-server
             ├─73715 bash /usr/lib/netdata/plugins.d/tc-qos-helper.sh 1
             ├─73720 /usr/lib/netdata/plugins.d/nfacct.plugin 1
             └─73723 /usr/lib/netdata/plugins.d/apps.plugin 1

Step 4 – Access Netdata Monitoring Dashboard

At this point, Netdata is started and listens on port 19999. You can check it with the following command.

ss -antpl | grep 19999

You should see the following output.

LISTEN 0      0            0.0.0.0:19999      0.0.0.0:*    users:(("netdata",pid=73567,fd=6))                                                                         
LISTEN 0      0                  *:19999            *:*    users:(("netdata",pid=73567,fd=7)) 

Now, open your web browser and access the Netdata web interface using the URL http://your-server-ip:19999. You should see the Netdata dashboard on the following screen.

System Overview

Disk Usage

Memory Usage

Networking State

IPv4 Networking

Conclusion

In this guide, we explained how to install the Netdata monitoring tool on Arch Linux. You can now install the Netdata agent on the client machine and start monitoring them via the Netdata dashboard. You can now deploy the Netdata monitoring tool on dedicated server hosting from Atlantic.Net!