How to Monitor MySQL with Prometheus and Grafana

Prometheus is a popular open‑source monitoring system, and monitoring MySQL is one of its key use cases. This article walks through the process of setting up MySQL monitoring using Prometheus, MySQL Exporter, and Grafana.

1. Install MySQL Exporter

Download and extract the exporter package, then create a configuration file with the MySQL credentials (use a read‑only account in production).

$ wget https://github.com/prometheus/mysqld_exporter/releases/download/v0.13.0/mysqld_exporter-0.13.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf mysqld_exporter-0.13.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz

$ mkdir -p /etc/mysql_exporter/
$ vi /etc/mysql_exporter/my.cnf
[client]
user=root
password=123456

Start the exporter:

$ cd mysqld_exporter-0.13.0.linux-amd64
$ ./mysqld_exporter --config.my-cnf=/etc/mysql_exporter/my.cnf &

2. Configure Prometheus

Add a job to prometheus.yml to scrape the exporter every 5 seconds:

- job_name: 'mysql'
  scrape_interval: 5s
  static_configs:
    - targets: ['192.168.214.112:9104']

Restart Prometheus:

$ prometheus --config.file /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml &

Verify that the target is up and that metrics are being collected.

3. Set Up Grafana Dashboard

Import a MySQL dashboard (e.g., ID 7362) in Grafana via Create → Import , select the Prometheus data source, and apply the dashboard to visualize the collected metrics.

4. Configure Alerts

Define alerting rules for important MySQL metrics such as mysql_global_status_threads_connected , mysql_global_status_threads_running , mysql_global_status_queries , mysql_global_status_slow_queries , mysql_global_status_aborted_clients , mysql_global_status_aborted_connects , and mysql_global_variables_max_connections . These alerts help DBA teams detect issues early.

By following these steps, you obtain a complete monitoring and alerting solution for MySQL using Prometheus and Grafana.