sourcemation/node_exporter repository overview

⁠Node Exporter packaged by Sourcemation

Node Exporter is a Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by *NIX kernels, written in Go with pluggable metric collectors. It exposes a wide variety of hardware- and kernel-related metrics such as CPU, memory, disk space, disk I/O, network bandwidth, and more.

This Node Exporter distribution is provided by the Sourcemation packaging team, built on a secure Debian 13 Slim base image.

⁠Usage

Run a temporary container with Node Exporter:

docker run --rm -it -p 9100:9100 sourcemation/node_exporter:latest

The Node Exporter metrics endpoint will be available at http://localhost:9100/metrics⁠.

⁠Advanced usage examples

Run Node Exporter with persistent storage for textfile collector:

docker run -d --name node_exporter \
  -p 9100:9100 \
  -v /path/to/textfiles:/var/lib/node_exporter/textfile_collector \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --collector.textfile.directory=/var/lib/node_exporter/textfile_collector

Run with host monitoring (recommended for production):

docker run -d \
  --name node_exporter \
  --net="host" \
  --pid="host" \
  -v "/:/host:ro,rslave" \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --path.rootfs=/host

Run with specific collectors enabled/disabled:

docker run -d --name node_exporter \
  -p 9100:9100 \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --collector.disable-defaults \
  --collector.cpu \
  --collector.meminfo \
  --collector.loadavg \
  --collector.filesystem

Run with filesystem monitoring and custom mount point exclusions:

docker run -d --name node_exporter \
  -p 9100:9100 \
  -v "/:/host:ro,rslave" \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --path.rootfs=/host \
  --collector.filesystem.mount-points-exclude=^/(dev|proc|sys|var/lib/docker/.+|var/lib/kubelet/.+)($|/)

Run with custom web configuration (TLS support):

docker run -d --name node_exporter \
  -p 9100:9100 \
  -v /path/to/web-config.yml:/etc/node_exporter/web-config.yml \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --web.config.file=/etc/node_exporter/web-config.yml

Run with additional collectors enabled:

docker run -d --name node_exporter \
  -p 9100:9100 \
  -v "/:/host:ro,rslave" \
  sourcemation/node_exporter:latest \
  --path.rootfs=/host \
  --collector.systemd \
  --collector.processes \
  --collector.interrupts \
  --log.level=info

⁠Environment Vars, Ports, Volumes

This image uses the following environment variables:

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

This image exposes the following ports:

• 9100 - Node Exporter metrics endpoint

Please note that the ports need to be either manually forwarded with the -p option or let Docker choose some for you with the -P option.

⁠Volumes

• /var/lib/node_exporter/textfile_collector - Directory for textfile collector (optional)
• /host - Host root filesystem mount point (when using --path.rootfs=/host)

⁠Configuration

⁠Collector Configuration

Enable specific collectors:

--collector.systemd --collector.processes

Disable default collectors:

--no-collector.arp --no-collector.bcache

Enable only specific collectors:

--collector.disable-defaults --collector.cpu --collector.meminfo --collector.loadavg

⁠Filtering Options

Many collectors support include/exclude patterns:

# Exclude certain filesystem types
--collector.filesystem.fs-types-exclude=^(autofs|binfmt_misc|bpf|cgroup2?|configfs|debugfs|devpts|devtmpfs|fusectl|hugetlbfs|iso9660|mqueue|nsfs|overlay|proc|procfs|pstore|rpc_pipefs|securityfs|selinuxfs|squashfs|sysfs|tracefs)$

# Exclude certain mount points
--collector.filesystem.mount-points-exclude=^/(dev|proc|sys|var/lib/docker/.+|var/lib/kubelet/.+)($|/)

# Include only specific network devices
--collector.netdev.device-include=^(eth0|wlan0)$

⁠Textfile Collector

The textfile collector allows you to expose custom metrics from files:

# Enable textfile collector
--collector.textfile.directory=/var/lib/node_exporter/textfile_collector

# Example: Create a custom metric file
echo 'my_custom_metric{label="value"} 42' > /var/lib/node_exporter/textfile_collector/custom.prom

⁠Security

This image runs as the nobody user (non-root) for enhanced security.

For production host monitoring, it's recommended to run the container with:

• Host network namespace (--net="host")
• Host PID namespace (--pid="host")
• Read-only bind mount of host root (-v "/:/host:ro,rslave")
• --path.rootfs=/host argument

⁠Docker Compose Example

version: '3.8'
services:
  node_exporter:
    image: sourcemation/node_exporter:latest
    container_name: node_exporter
    command:
      - '--path.rootfs=/host'
      - '--collector.filesystem.mount-points-exclude=^/(dev|proc|sys|var/lib/docker/.+|var/lib/kubelet/.+)($|/)'
      - '--collector.systemd'
      - '--collector.processes'
    network_mode: host
    pid: host
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - '/:/host:ro,rslave'

⁠Prometheus Configuration

Example Prometheus scrape configuration:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'node_exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9100']
    scrape_interval: 15s
    scrape_timeout: 10s

⁠Common Metrics

Some of the most useful metrics exposed by Node Exporter:

• node_cpu_seconds_total - CPU time spent in different modes
• node_memory_MemTotal_bytes - Total memory in bytes
• node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes - Available memory in bytes
• node_filesystem_size_bytes - Filesystem size in bytes
• node_filesystem_avail_bytes - Filesystem space available in bytes
• node_load1, node_load5, node_load15 - Load averages
• node_network_receive_bytes_total - Network bytes received
• node_network_transmit_bytes_total - Network bytes transmitted
• node_disk_read_bytes_total - Disk bytes read
• node_disk_written_bytes_total - Disk bytes written

⁠Contributing and Issues

We'd love for you to contribute! You can request new features, report bugs, or submit a pull request with your contribution to this image on the Sourcemation GitHub repository.

• Creating issues, feature requests, and bug reports⁠
• Creating pull requests⁠

Disclaimer: The sourcemation/node_exporter image is not affiliated with the Prometheus Node Exporter project. The respective companies and organisations own the trademarks mentioned in the offering. The sourcemation/node_exporter image is a separate project and is maintained by Sourcemation⁠.

⁠Extra notes

⁠Image and its components Risk Analysis report

A detailed risk analysis report of the image and its components can be found on the Sourcemation platform⁠.

For more information, check out the Node Exporter documentation⁠ and the official Node Exporter repository⁠.

⁠Licenses

The base license for the solution (Node Exporter) is the Apache License 2.0⁠. The licenses for each component shipped as part of this image can be found on the image's appropriate Sourcemation entry⁠.