Blog
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How to use Active Directory to deploy the Prometheus Windows Exporter
Prometheus Deployment with Active Directory If you are using Prometheus for Windows monitoring, you will have encountered the setup process for installing the Windows Exporter on each host, where you have to run the MSI installer on each server to get the service running. Whilst not a huge headache for a few servers, the time and effort of clicking through manual MSI installations adds up. However, if the servers are Active Directory domain members, AD has a built in mechanism that can take care of this.
May 19, 2025
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How to Monitor Linux and Windows with Prometheus and Grafana
Monitoring Windows and Linux with Prometheus and Grafana One of the most useful things about using Prometheus to collect metrics is how versatile it is as a solution. There are metric exporters available for a variety of services, hypervisors and operating systems - including Windows. “Why post about Windows?” you may ask. Well, the reality of many IT systems and environments is that they are not “greenfield” sites, but are rather “brownfield” - places that have been built on before, meaning that you may not have the luxury of starting from scratch - and very often a combination of different operating systems running different workloads.
April 15, 2025
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How to Monitor Network Devices using Ping with Prometheus and Grafana
Network Monitoring using Ping with Prometheus and Grafana Whilst network monitoring is an essential to work network environments and cloud services, it is often overlooked within the home. However, with increasing numbers of devices in the home and the expectation of them being always available, some network monitoring can save you from some nasty surprises when you are in a hurry. Devices such as printers and access points can have a nasty habit of being offline when you need them, so a simple solution is to apply some network monitoring using ICMP - ping testing.
March 18, 2025
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How to Monitor Proxmox with Prometheus and Grafana
Monitoring Proxmox Whether you are running in a simple home lab or an Internet facing production environment, monitoring is an important part of ensuring that your systems are working as intended. When it comes to Proxmox, this can be easily achieved using Prometheus and Grafana, and some integration with a PVE metric exporter. Note - the commands and details listed below can also be found in this House of Logic github repo.
February 18, 2025
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How to setup Prometheus and Grafana using Docker
Prometheus and Grafana This is the first in a series of posts about monitoring using Prometheus and Grafana, and how they can be used in a variety of scenarios. The setups in these post make use of Docker to run the Grafana, Prometheus and Prometheus exporter applications - but key to this is the setup of Prometheus and Grafana which does not differ significantly between each scenario. The components and their roles are as follows:
February 18, 2025
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Proxmox Read Only User for API access
Read Only User Read only users are an important feature for Proxmox if you want to integrate with other systems for monitoring purposes. A read only user can allow for access to a Proxmox cluster without the ability to implement changes - this post shows how to do this. Under “Datacenter” go to “Users” and click “Add”. Enter the user name and password, and select the Realm - Proxmox VE authentication will include the entire cluster.
January 27, 2025
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Docker on LXC in Proxmox
Docker on LXC As covered in the previous post here, LXC offers a different form of containerisation to Docker. Docker containers are immutable and reset when restarted, whereas LXC are more closely coupled with their storage. Each container technology has a different best-use case, but it is possible to combine the two in a practical application, and to do so on Proxmox. Setting up Docker on LXC Create your LXC container as normal - see Proxmox LXC post here.
December 31, 2024
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Cloning VM templates in Proxmox with TerraForm
Cloning with Terraform Whilst cloning of virtual machines and templates is supported in Proxmox, and much customisation can be achieved with Cloud-Init, TerraForm allows you to take things to the next level. When used together, Cloud-Init and TerraForm (or OpenTofu) allow you to customise the the configuration of machines during the deployment process, rather than doing so after as you may have to do with a straightforward cloning. TerraForm / OpenTofu bring the added benefit of Infrastructure as Code, allowing the user to drive their infrastrucure from a code base defined as code.
October 24, 2024
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Importing VMs to Proxmox from VMware and the Cloud
If you are looking to migrate away from VMware to Proxmox or get started quickly with Open Virtualization Archive (OVA) templates, there are a couple of features that you should investigate. Importing from VMware Proxmox’s VMware import functionality is straightforward but effective. To import a VM from VMware, you first need to mount the VMware datastore(s) as storage in Proxmox. The connection is made directly to the ESXi host rather than vSphere, and needs for SSH to be enabled on the ESXi host.
August 10, 2024
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Proxmox Cloud-Init
Cloud-Init offers a standardised way for users to rapidly stand up VMs, and is supported by many Linux operating systems. It is often used behind the scenes by cloud providers, but can also be used locally by the end user - and can be a useful building block in larger automation projects. Using Cloud-Init with Proxmox To use cloud-init on Proxmox, you need to download the cloud-init image of the OS you wish to use.
July 27, 2024