--- title: "cAdvisor + Prometheus + Grafana: Building a Container Resource Monitoring System" description: "This guide explains how to use cAdvisor with Prometheus and Grafana to comprehensively monitor Docker container resources—including CPU, memory, disk, and network—and visualize the data by importing a Grafana Dashboard." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/prometheus-grafana-docker-monitoring" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2024-11-26T01:01:35+08:00" category: "Cloud" tags: ["prometheus", "grafana", "docker", "cadvisor", "monitoring", "container"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # cAdvisor + Prometheus + Grafana: Building a Container Resource Monitoring System ## Introduction [In a previous article, we showed how to use Prometheus to monitor Nginx performance](https://blog.markkulab.net/prometheus-monitoring-nginx-requests/). With the growing popularity of containerization, monitoring Docker container resource usage is equally important. This article will introduce how to use **cAdvisor** (Container Advisor) in combination with Prometheus and Grafana to comprehensively monitor Docker container resources like CPU, memory, disk, and network. ## What is cAdvisor? **cAdvisor** is an open-source tool developed by Google for real-time monitoring of container resource usage and performance data. Compared to basic Docker commands (like `docker stats`), cAdvisor provides more detailed data and a graphical interface for querying, and it integrates seamlessly with Prometheus and Grafana. ## Installing and Deploying cAdvisor First, we need to start the cAdvisor container to collect Docker resource data. ### Starting the cAdvisor Container Use the following command to start the cAdvisor container: ```bash docker run \ --volume=/:/rootfs:ro \ --volume=/var/run:/var/run:rw \ --volume=/sys:/sys:ro \ --volume=/var/lib/docker/:/var/lib/docker:ro \ --publish=8884:8080 \ --detach=true \ --name=cadvisor \ google/cadvisor:latest ``` This will start cAdvisor on local port **8884**. ### Accessing cAdvisor After it starts, open your browser and navigate to [http://localhost:8884](http://localhost:8884) to check the cAdvisor dashboard, as shown in the image below: ![cAdvisor Dashboard](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/prometheus-grafana-docker-monitoring/images/cAdvisor.png) ## Configuring Prometheus to Monitor cAdvisor Next, we'll modify the Prometheus configuration file to add a scrape job for cAdvisor. ### Refer to the [config files in the Github Repo](https://github.com/markku636/Prometheus) from the previous article on monitoring Nginx with Prometheus Copy the Prometheus scraper configuration file `prometheus.yaml`, rename it to `prometheus-with-cadvisor.yaml`, and add the following content to the configuration file: ```yaml - job_name: "cadvisor" static_configs: - targets: ["cadvisor:8080"] # cAdvisor 的服務地址和埠號 ``` Copy the deployment configuration file `deployment.yaml` and rename it to `deployment-with-cadvisor.yaml`. ``` cadvisor: image: gcr.io/cadvisor/cadvisor:latest container_name: cadvisor ports: - "8884:8080" # cAdvisor 預設埠號 volumes: - /:/rootfs:ro - /var/run:/var/run:rw - /sys:/sys:ro - /var/lib/docker/:/var/lib/docker:ro ``` Build and run the containers. ``` docker-compose -f ./deployment-with-cadvisor.yaml up -d ``` ## Verifying the Prometheus Configuration Check the Prometheus scraper Targets page at [http://localhost:9090/targets](http://localhost:9090/targets) to confirm that cAdvisor has been discovered and is being scraped correctly: ![Prometheus Target](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/prometheus-grafana-docker-monitoring/images/prometheus-target.png) ## Visualizing Data with Grafana **Grafana** provides powerful data visualization capabilities. Here are the steps to integrate cAdvisor data into a Grafana dashboard: ### Download a Grafana Dashboard Download the cAdvisor dashboard from the [official Grafana Dashboards site](https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/16314-docker-container-os-node-node-exporter-cadvisor/). ### Import the Dashboard Go to your Grafana dashboard, click "Import," and upload the downloaded JSON file to Grafana. ![Import Dashboard](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/prometheus-grafana-docker-monitoring/images/dashboard.png) Once the import is complete, you will see real-time container monitoring data, including CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. ## Summary By combining cAdvisor, Prometheus, and Grafana, we can achieve comprehensive monitoring of Docker container resources, helping us manage and optimize containerized applications more efficiently. ### Related Links - [Prometheus Official Documentation](https://prometheus.io/docs/) - [Grafana Official Dashboard Market](https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/) - [Prometheus and Grafana Docker Example](https://yunlzheng.gitbook.io/prometheus-book/part-ii-prometheus-jin-jie/exporter/commonly-eporter-usage/use-prometheus-monitor-container) - [GKE Prometheus](https://hackmd.io/@tN16s2COSmCKkIg6NfGrUQ/HJ5JNYea2?utm_source=preview-mode&utm_medium=rec) --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/prometheus-grafana-docker-monitoring) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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