Installation

Netdata is a monitoring agent. It is designed to be installed and run on all your systems: physical and virtual servers, containers, even IoT.

The best way to install Netdata is directly from source. Our automatic installer will install any required system packages and compile Netdata directly on your systems.

!!! warning You can find Netdata packages distributed by third parties. In many cases, these packages are either too old or broken. So, the suggested ways to install Netdata are the ones in this page.

1. Automatic one line installation, easy installation from source, this is the default
2. Install pre-built static binary on any 64bit Linux
3. Run Netdata in a docker container
4. Manual installation, step by step
5. Install on FreeBSD
6. Install on pfSense
7. Enable on FreeNAS Corral
8. Install on macOS (OS X)
9. Install on a Kubernetes cluster
10. Install using binary packages

See also the list of Netdata package maintainers for ASUSTOR NAS, OpenWRT, ReadyNAS, etc.

Note: From Netdata v1.12 and above, anonymous usage information is collected by default and sent to Google Analytics. To read more about the information collected and how to opt-out, check the anonymous statistics page.

One-line installation

This method is fully automatic on all Linux distributions. FreeBSD and MacOS systems need some preparations before installing Netdata for the first time. Check the FreeBSD and the MacOS sections for more information.

To install Netdata from source, and keep it up to date with our nightly releases automatically, run the following:

$ bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh)

!!! note Do not use sudo for the one-line installer—it will escalate privileges itself if needed.

To learn more about the pros and cons of using *nightly* vs. *stable* releases, see our [notice about the two options](#nightly-vs-stable-releases).

[ "b6d16c171ccad073b86327246151d875" = "$(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh | md5sum | cut -d ' ' -f 1)" ] && echo "OK, VALID" || echo "FAILED, INVALID"

$ bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh) --dont-wait --dont-start-it --no-updates --stable-channel

Once Netdata is installed, see Getting Started.

Linux 64bit pre-built static binary

You can install a pre-compiled static binary of Netdata on any Intel/AMD 64bit Linux system (even those that don't have a package manager, like CoreOS, CirrOS, busybox systems, etc). You can also use these packages on systems with broken or unsupported package managers.

To install Netdata from a binary package on any Linux distro and any kernel version on Intel/AMD 64bit systems, and keep it up to date with our nightly releases automatically, run the following:

$ bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart-static64.sh)

!!! note Do not use sudo for this installer—it will escalate privileges itself if needed.

To learn more about the pros and cons of using *nightly* vs. *stable* releases, see our [notice about the two options](README.md#nightly-vs-stable-releases).

If your system does not have `bash` installed, open the `More information and advanced uses of the kickstart-static64.sh script` dropdown for instructions to run the installer without `bash`.

This script installs Netdata at `/opt/netdata`.

[ "4415e8c13e529a795abb953a9be14ad5" = "$(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart-static64.sh | md5sum | cut -d ' ' -f 1)" ] && echo "OK, VALID" || echo "FAILED, INVALID"

$ bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart-static64.sh) --dont-wait --dont-start-it --no-updates --stable-channel

# download the script with curl
curl https://my-netdata.io/kickstart-static64.sh >/tmp/kickstart-static64.sh

# or, download the script with wget
wget -O /tmp/kickstart-static64.sh https://my-netdata.io/kickstart-static64.sh

# run the downloaded script (any sh is fine, no need for bash)
sh /tmp/kickstart-static64.sh

Once Netdata is installed, see Getting Started.

Run Netdata in a Docker container

You can Install Netdata with Docker.

Install Netdata on Linux manually

To install the latest git version of Netdata, please follow these 2 steps:

1. Prepare your system

   Install the required packages on your system.

2. Install Netdata

   Download and install Netdata. You can also update it the same way.

Prepare your system

Try our experimental automatic requirements installer (no need to be root). This will try to find the packages that should be installed on your system to build and run Netdata. It supports most major Linux distributions released after 2010:

• Alpine Linux and its derivatives

  • You have to install bash yourself, before using the installer.

• Arch Linux and its derivatives

  • You need arch/aur for package Judy.

• Gentoo Linux and its derivatives

• Debian Linux and its derivatives (including Ubuntu, Mint)

• Redhat Enterprise Linux and its derivatives (including Fedora, CentOS, Amazon Machine Image)

  • Please note that for RHEL/CentOS you need EPEL. In addition, RHEL/CentOS version 6 also need OKay for package libuv version 1.

• SuSe Linux and its derivatives (including openSuSe)

• SLE12 Must have your system registered with Suse Customer Center or have the DVD. See #1162

Install the packages for having a basic Netdata installation (system monitoring and many applications, without mysql / mariadb, postgres, named, hardware sensors and SNMP):

curl -Ss 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netdata/netdata-demo-site/master/install-required-packages.sh' >/tmp/kickstart.sh && bash /tmp/kickstart.sh -i netdata

Install all the required packages for monitoring everything Netdata can monitor:

curl -Ss 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netdata/netdata-demo-site/master/install-required-packages.sh' >/tmp/kickstart.sh && bash /tmp/kickstart.sh -i netdata-all

If the above do not work for you, please open a github issue with a copy of the message you get on screen. We are trying to make it work everywhere (this is also why the script reports back success or failure for all its runs).

This is how to do it by hand:

# Debian / Ubuntu
apt-get install zlib1g-dev uuid-dev libuv1-dev liblz4-dev libjudy-dev libssl-dev libmnl-dev gcc make git autoconf autoconf-archive autogen automake pkg-config curl python

# Fedora
dnf install zlib-devel libuuid-devel libuv-devel lz4-devel Judy-devel openssl-devel libmnl-devel gcc make git autoconf autoconf-archive autogen automake pkgconfig curl findutils python

# CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux
yum install autoconf automake curl gcc git libmnl-devel libuuid-devel openssl-devel libuv-devel lz4-devel Judy-devel make nc pkgconfig python zlib-devel

# openSUSE
zypper install zlib-devel libuuid-devel libuv-devel liblz4-devel judy-devel libopenssl-devel libmnl-devel gcc make git autoconf autoconf-archive autogen automake pkgconfig curl findutils python

Once Netdata is compiled, to run it the following packages are required (already installed using the above commands):

Netdata will fail to start without the above.

Netdata plugins and various aspects of Netdata can be enabled or benefit when these are installed (they are optional):

Netdata will greatly benefit if you have the above packages installed, but it will still work without them.

Netdata DB engine can be enabled when these are installed (they are optional):

Netdata will greatly benefit if you have the above packages installed, but it will still work without them.

Install Netdata

Do this to install and run Netdata:

# download it - the directory 'netdata' will be created
git clone https://github.com/netdata/netdata.git --depth=100
cd netdata

# run script with root privileges to build, install, start Netdata
./netdata-installer.sh

• If you don't want to run it straight-away, add --dont-start-it option.

• You can also append --stable-channel to fetch and install only the official releases from GitHub, instead of the nightly builds.

• If you don't want to install it on the default directories, you can run the installer like this: ./netdata-installer.sh --install /opt. This one will install Netdata in /opt/netdata.

• If your server does not have access to the internet and you have manually put the installation directory on your server, you will need to pass the option --disable-go to the installer. The option will prevent the installer from attempting to download and install go.d.plugin.

Once the installer completes, the file /etc/netdata/netdata.conf will be created (if you changed the installation directory, the configuration will appear in that directory too).

You can edit this file to set options. One common option to tweak is history, which controls the size of the memory database Netdata will use. By default is 3600 seconds (an hour of data at the charts) which makes Netdata use about 10-15MB of RAM (depending on the number of charts detected on your system). Check [[Memory Requirements]].

To apply the changes you made, you have to restart Netdata.

Binary Packages

We provide our own flavour of binary packages for the most common operating systems that comply with .RPM and .DEB packaging formats.

We have currently released packages following the .RPM format with version 1.16.0. We have planned to release packages following the .DEB format with version 1.17.0. Early adopters may experiment with our .DEB formatted packages using our nightly releases. Our current packaging infrastructure provider is Package Cloud.

Netdata is committed to support installation of our solution to all operating systems. This is a constant battle for Netdata, as we strive to automate and make things easier for our users. For the operating system support matrix, please visit our distributions support page.

We provide two separate repositories, one for our stable releases and one for our nightly releases.

1. Stable releases: Our stable production releases are hosted in netdata/netdata repository of package cloud
2. Nightly releases: Our latest releases are hosted in netdata/netdata-edge repository of package cloud

Visit the repository pages and follow the quick set-up instructions to get started.

Other Systems

FreeBSD

You can install Netdata from ports or packages collection.

This is how to install the latest Netdata version from sources on FreeBSD:

# install required packages
pkg install bash e2fsprogs-libuuid git curl autoconf automake pkgconf pidof

# download Netdata
git clone https://github.com/netdata/netdata.git --depth=100

# install Netdata in /opt/netdata
cd netdata
./netdata-installer.sh --install /opt

pfSense

To install Netdata on pfSense run the following commands (within a shell or under Diagnostics/Command Prompt within the pfSense web interface).

Change platform (i386/amd64, etc) and FreeBSD versions (10/11, etc) according to your environment and change Netdata version (1.10.0 in example) according to latest version present within the FreeSBD repository:-

Note first three packages are downloaded from the pfSense repository for maintaining compatibility with pfSense, Netdata is downloaded from the FreeBSD repository.

pkg install pkgconf
pkg install bash
pkg install e2fsprogs-libuuid
pkg add http://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/latest/All/python36-3.6.8_2.txz
pkg add http://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/latest/All/netdata-1.13.0.txz

To start Netdata manually run service netdata onestart

To start Netdata automatically at each boot add service netdata onestart as a Shellcmd within the pfSense web interface (under Services/Shellcmd, which you need to install beforehand under System/Package Manager/Available Packages). Shellcmd Type should be set to Shellcmd. Alternatively more information can be found in https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Installing_FreeBSD_Packages, for achieving the same via the command line and scripts.

If you experience an issue with /usr/bin/install absense on pfSense 2.3 or earlier, update pfSense or use workaround from https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/6643

Note: In pfSense, the Netdata configuration files are located under /usr/local/etc/netdata

FreeNAS

On FreeNAS-Corral-RELEASE (>=10.0.3), Netdata is pre-installed.

To use Netdata, the service will need to be enabled and started from the FreeNAS CLI.

To enable the Netdata service:

service netdata config set enable=true

To start the Netdata service:

service netdata start

macOS

Netdata on macOS still has limited charts, but external plugins do work.

You can either install Netdata with Homebrew

brew install netdata

or from source:

# install Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install

click Install in the software update popup window, then

# install HomeBrew package manager
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

# install required packages
brew install ossp-uuid autoconf automake pkg-config

# download Netdata
git clone https://github.com/netdata/netdata.git --depth=100

# install Netdata in /usr/local/netdata
cd netdata
sudo ./netdata-installer.sh --install /usr/local

The installer will also install a startup plist to start Netdata when your Mac boots.

Alpine 3.x

Execute these commands to install Netdata in Alpine Linux 3.x:

# install required packages
apk add alpine-sdk bash curl zlib-dev util-linux-dev libmnl-dev gcc make git autoconf automake pkgconfig python logrotate

# if you plan to run node.js Netdata plugins
apk add nodejs

# download Netdata - the directory 'netdata' will be created
git clone https://github.com/netdata/netdata.git --depth=100
cd netdata


# build it, install it, start it
./netdata-installer.sh


# make Netdata start at boot
echo -e "#!/usr/bin/env bash\n/usr/sbin/netdata" >/etc/local.d/netdata.start
chmod 755 /etc/local.d/netdata.start

# make Netdata stop at shutdown
echo -e "#!/usr/bin/env bash\nkillall netdata" >/etc/local.d/netdata.stop
chmod 755 /etc/local.d/netdata.stop

# enable the local service to start automatically
rc-update add local

Synology

The documentation previously recommended installing the Debian Chroot package from the Synology community package sources and then running Netdata from within the chroot. This does not work, as the chroot environment does not have access to /proc, and therefore exposes very few metrics to Netdata. Additionally, this issue, still open as of 2018/06/24, indicates that the Debian Chroot package is not suitable for DSM versions greater than version 5 and may corrupt system libraries and render the NAS unable to boot.

The good news is that the 64-bit static installer works fine if your NAS is one that uses the amd64 architecture. It will install the content into /opt/netdata, making future removal safe and simple.

When Netdata is first installed, it will run as root. This may or may not be acceptable for you, and since other installations run it as the netdata user, you might wish to do the same. This requires some extra work:

1. Creat a group netdata via the Synology group interface. Give it no access to anything.
2. Create a user netdata via the Synology user interface. Give it no access to anything and a random password. Assign the user to the netdata group. Netdata will chuid to this user when running.
3. Change ownership of the following directories, as defined in Netdata Security:

$ chown -R root:netdata /opt/netdata/usr/share/netdata
$ chown -R netdata:netdata /opt/netdata/var/lib/netdata /opt/netdata/var/cache/netdata
$ chown -R netdata:root /opt/netdata/var/log/netdata

Additionally, as of 2018/06/24, the Netdata installer doesn't recognize DSM as an operating system, so no init script is installed. You'll have to do this manually:

1. Add this file as /etc/rc.netdata. Make it executable with chmod 0755 /etc/rc.netdata.
2. Edit /etc/rc.local and add a line calling /etc/rc.netdata to have it start on boot:

# Netdata startup
[ -x /etc/rc.netdata ] && /etc/rc.netdata start

Nightly vs. stable releases

The Netdata team maintains two releases of the Netdata agent: nightly and stable. By default, Netdata's installation scripts will give you automatic, nightly updates, as that is our recommended configuration.

Nightly: We create nightly builds every 24 hours. They contain fully-tested code that fixes bugs or security flaws, or introduces new features to Netdata. Every nightly release is a candidate for then becoming a stable release—when we're ready, we simply change the release tags on GitHub. That means nightly releases are stable and proven to function correctly in the vast majority of Netdata use cases. That's why nightly is the best choice for most Netdata users.

Stable: We create stable releases whenever we believe the code has reached a major milestone. Most often, stable releases correlate with the introduction of new, significant features. Stable releases might be a better choice for those who run Netdata in mission-critical production systems, as updates will come more infrequently, and only after the community helps fix any bugs that might have been introduced in previous releases.

Pros of using nightly releases:

• Get the latest features and bugfixes as soon as they're available
• Receive security-related fixes immediately
• Use stable, fully-tested code that's always improving
• Leverage the same Netdata experience our community is using

Pros of using stable releases:

• Protect yourself from the rare instance when major bugs slip through our testing and negatively affect a Netdata installation
• Retain more control over the Netdata version you use

Automatic updates

By default, Netdata's installation scripts enable automatic updates for both nightly and stable release channels.

If you would prefer to manually update your Netdata agent, you can disable automatic updates by using the --no-updates option when you install or update Netdata using the one-line installation script.

bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh) --no-updates

With automatic updates disabled, you can choose exactly when and how you update Netdata.