How to Set Up Grafana Alerting for Server Monitoring

Grafana alerting sends notifications when metrics cross defined thresholds — essential for proactive server management.

CPU Alert

Query: avg(rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode!="idle"}[5m])) * 100
Condition: IS ABOVE 80
For: 5 minutes

Disk Space Alert

Query: (node_filesystem_size_bytes - node_filesystem_free_bytes) / node_filesystem_size_bytes * 100
Condition: IS ABOVE 90
For: 1 minute

Notification Policy

Default: email (group wait 30s, repeat 4h)
Override severity=critical: PagerDuty (group wait 0s)

Conclusion

Grafana alerting catches problems before users notice. Our team configures complete monitoring and alerting stacks.