PCA practice question 5 of 15

What is the name of the official *nix OS kernel metrics exporter?

Full set: 60 questions
Answer options
A: Prometheus_exporter
B: node_exporter Correct answer
C: metrics_exporter
D: os_exporter
Correct Answer:
B. node_exporter
Explanation

The nodeexporter is the official and most widely used Prometheus exporter for gathering hardware and operating system metrics from NIX kernels, including Linux. It is designed to expose a wide variety of system-level statistics, such as CPU utilization, memory usage, disk I/O, and network traffic. In the Prometheus ecosystem, the term "node" is a synonym for a host or machine, hence the name nodeexporter. It is a standalone binary that runs on the target machine to collect and expose these metrics over HTTP for a Prometheus server to scrape.

Why Incorrect

A. Prometheusexporter is a generic descriptor for any exporter compatible with Prometheus, not the specific name of the official OS metrics exporter.
C. metricsexporter is a functional description, not a specific product name. Many tools could be described this way, but it is not the official name.
D. osexporter is a plausible but incorrect name. The official tool is named nodeexporter to signify it exports metrics from a machine (node).

References

1. Prometheus Official Documentation: The official GitHub repository for the project explicitly names it nodeexporter and describes its purpose.

Source: Prometheus Community. (n.d.). prometheus/nodeexporter. GitHub.

Reference: README.md, "Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by NIX kernels." Retrieved from https://github.com/prometheus/nodeexporter

2. Prometheus Official Guides: The official setup guide for monitoring Linux hosts directly specifies the use of nodeexporter.

Source: Prometheus.io. (n.d.). Monitoring a Linux host with the Node Exporter.

Reference: Section "Installing and running the Node Exporter". Retrieved from https://prometheus.io/docs/guides/node-exporter/

3. University Courseware: Reputable university courses on distributed systems and cloud computing reference nodeexporter as the standard tool for host-level metric collection.

Source: University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. (2023). Distributed Systems (MTAT.08.021).

Reference: Lab 10: Monitoring, "The most common way to get system metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network) is to use the nodeexporter." Retrieved from https://courses.cs.ut.ee/2023/ds/spring/Main/Lab10-Monitoring

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