How to Monitor Redis with Prometheus and Grafana: Step-by-Step Guide

In the previous article we introduced Prometheus architecture and principles; this article demonstrates a hands‑on setup using Prometheus and Grafana to monitor Redis.

Download the redis_exporter plugin

The official project does not provide a dedicated exporter, but a community version is available on GitHub:

https://github.com/oliver006/redis_exporter

Installation steps

git clone https://github.com/oliver006/redis_exporter.git
cd redis_exporter
go build .
./redis_exporter --version

If the build fails with an import error, set the Go proxy before rebuilding:

export GOPROXY=https://goproxy.io
go build .

Start redis_exporter

For a single Redis instance:

nohup ./redis_exporter -redis.addr 127.0.0.1:6379 &

For multiple instances, start the exporter once and let Prometheus scrape each target:

nohup ./redis_exporter &

Prometheus configuration

Add the following job to prometheus.yml to scrape the exporter and the Redis instances:

- job_name: 'redis_exporter_targets'
  static_configs:
  - targets:
    - redis://10.9.106.217:6379
    - redis://10.9.106.217:6381
  metrics_path: /scrape
  relabel_configs:
  - source_labels: [__address__]
    target_label: __param_target
  - source_labels: [__param_target]
    target_label: instance
  - target_label: __address__
    replacement: 10.9.11.22:9121

- job_name: 'redis_exporter'
  static_configs:
  - targets:
    - 10.9.11.22:9121

Reload the configuration:

sudo curl 'http://localhost:9090/-/reload' -X POST

Collected Redis metrics are now visible in Prometheus.

Configure Grafana

Add a Prometheus data source in Grafana and install the Prometheus plugin.

Download the Redis dashboard JSON (e.g., from Grafana.com ) and import it, selecting the Prometheus data source.