Blackbox exporter

Installation of blackbox exporter in production environment consists from following high level steps:

Install exporter;
Configure authentication;
Configure firewall;
Configure service for autostart and restart;
Check access to exporter from I&B monitoring platform.

1. Install blackbox exporter.

Check latest version, available platforms on blackbox_exporter GitHub page and make necessary changes in variables on next step.
Prepare environment variables to simplify installation and configuration process.

Bash

export EXPORTER_VERSION=0.27.0
export EXPORTER_PLATFORM=linux-amd64

Download exporter

Bash

wget https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/download/v$EXPORTER_VERSION/blackbox_exporter-$EXPORTER_VERSION.$EXPORTER_PLATFORM.tar.gz

Create directory /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter and untar exporter into it.

Bash

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter
sudo tar xvfz blackbox_exporter-$EXPORTER_VERSION.$EXPORTER_PLATFORM.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter

Create prometheus user. If it already exist - go to step 6.

Fedora (RHEL, CentOS)

Bash

sudo useradd -M -s /sbin/nologin prometheus

-M (or --no-create-home): This option prevents the creation of a home directory for the new user;
-s /sbin/nologin: This option sets the user's login shell to /sbin/nologin. This effectively prevents the user from interactively logging into the system. While the user won't have a password set, this further ensures they cannot log in.

Debian (Ubuntu)

Bash

sudo useradd -s /sbin/nologin prometheus --no-create-home

Make prometheus user owner of blackbox_exporter directory

Bash

sudo chown -hR prometheus:prometheus /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter

2. Configure firewall

Configure firewall on resource

blackbox exporter uses default port 9115, so allow it in firewall on resource.

Fedora (RHEL, CentOS)

Bash

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=9115/tcp --permanent
sudo systemctl reload firewalld

Check firewall configuration

sudo firewall-cmd --list-all

You should see in output:

ports: 9115/tcp

Debian (Ubuntu)

sudo ufw allow 9115

You should see in output:

Rules updated
Rules updated (v6)

Check firewall configuration

sudo ufw status

You should see in output:

To                             Action          From
--                             ------          ----
9115                           ALLOW           Anywhere

its good

3. Configure authentication for exporter

Do the steps described in Exporters configuration → Authentication section.

4. Check configuration

Create config file with command

Bash

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/config.yml

And paste into file minimal configuration for tests

Bash

modules:
  http_2xx:
    prober: http

Run blackbox_exporter

Bash

/usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/blackbox_exporter-$EXPORTER_VERSION.$EXPORTER_PLATFORM/blackbox_exporter --config.file /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/config.yml --web.config.file=/usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/web-config.yml

In output you should see:

... msg="Loaded config file"
... msg="TLS is enabled." ...

Check with browser if it is accessible at:

https://resource-hostname-or-ip:9115/metrics

After entering exporter’s user name and password you should see page like this:

# HELP blackbox_exporter_build_info A metric with a constant '1' value labeled by version, revision, branch, goversion from which blackbox_exporter was built, and the goos and goarch for the build.
# TYPE blackbox_exporter_build_info gauge
blackbox_exporter_build_info{branch="HEAD",goarch="amd64",goos="linux",goversion="go1.24.4",revision="46ea0224f57b708fdff317f8872765a77ef64034",tags="unknown",version="0.27.0"} 1
# HELP blackbox_exporter_config_last_reload_success_timestamp_seconds Timestamp of the last successful configuration reload.
# TYPE blackbox_exporter_config_last_reload_success_timestamp_seconds gauge
blackbox_exporter_config_last_reload_success_timestamp_seconds 1.759910771420019e+09
...

Stop blackbox exporter with Ctrl-c in terminal where you run it.

Make blackbox_exporter service for autostart and restart.

Create file with your preferred text editor, for example nano …

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/blackbox_exporter.service

… and paste following text into it.

Bash

[Unit]
Description=blackbox Exporter

[Service]
User=prometheus
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/blackbox_exporter-0.27.0.linux-amd64/blackbox_exporter  --config.file /usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/config.yml  --web.config.file=/usr/local/bin/blackbox_exporter/web-config.yml

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save file and exit editor.

Start service …

Bash

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start blackbox_exporter
sudo systemctl enable blackbox_exporter

… and check

Bash

sudo systemctl status blackbox_exporter

You should see following output similar to:

In case of any problem, you should view log entries for service:

Bash

journalctl -u blackbox_exporter.service -e

Now blackbox exporter is ready to accept data and then expose it to Prometheus.