Monitor Docker Services Using Grafana, Prometheus & cAdvisor — Without Touching the CLI

 

If you're running Docker containers on a server, monitoring their performance using command-line tools can be time-consuming and difficult to visualize. In this guide, I’ll show you how to monitor your Docker services using Grafana, Prometheus, and cAdvisor—all through a web interface, without relying on CLI tools after setup.

You’ll be able to:

• Track real-time Docker container metrics
• Visualize system performance through a Grafana dashboard
• Use Prometheus to scrape and expose container metrics
• Deploy everything using simple Docker commands

Step 1: Run Your Docker Containers

Make sure your Docker containers are already running. Here’s a snapshot of my currently active containers:

Step 2: Install cAdvisor in a Docker Container

To collect container metrics in real time, we’ll run cAdvisor inside a dedicated Docker container.

Run the cAdvisor Container:

sudo docker run 
  --volume=/:/rootfs:ro 
  --volume=/var/run:/var/run:rw 
  --volume=/sys:/sys:ro 
  --volume=/var/lib/docker/:/var/lib/docker:ro 
  --publish=8080:8080 
  --detach=true 
  --name=cadvisor 
  --privileged 
  --device=/dev/kmsg 
  gcr.io/cadvisor/cadvisor:v0.49.1

Test cAdvisor:

Open your browser and go to: http://localhost:8080/metrics

You should see live Prometheus-formatted metrics for all running containers.

Step 3: Set Up Prometheus for Metrics Collection

Next, we’ll install Prometheus to collect metrics from cAdvisor and serve them to Grafana.

Create prometheus.yml:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'cadvisor'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:8080']

Run Prometheus Container:

docker run -d 
  --name=prometheus 
  -p 9090:9090 
  -v /home/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml 
  prom/prometheus

Open Prometheus in your browser: http://localhost:9090/metrics

You should see structured metrics being collected as following output:

Step 4: Deploy Grafana for Visualization

Now install Grafana as a Docker container:

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name=grafana --restart always 
-v grafana-storage:/var/lib/grafana grafana/grafana

Access Grafana at: http://localhost:3000

Login with the default credentials or set up a new admin account on first login.

Step 5: Connect Prometheus to Grafana

Add Data Source:

1. Go to http://localhost:3000
2. Login → Click the ⚙️ (Settings/Gear icon) → Data Sources
3. Click Add data source
4. Choose Prometheus
•     Set URL to: http://host.docker.internal:9090 (Windows/macOS)
•     or http://x.x.x.x:9090 (for external access)
5. Click Save & Test

Step 6: Import Docker Monitoring Dashboard

Option A: Import via Dashboard ID

1. In Grafana, click ➕ → Import
2. Enter Dashboard ID: 14282
3. Click Load
4. Choose your Prometheus data source
5. Click Import
6. Save the dashboard with your preferred name

Option B: Import via JSON (If Dashboard ID fails)

1. Visit: 1.      https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/14282
2. Click “View JSON”
3. Right-click → Save As → Save it as docker-dashboard.json
4. Go back to Grafana → ➕ Import → Upload JSON file
5. Select Prometheus as the data source → Click Import

Final Result: Real-Time Docker Monitoring Dashboard

Once everything is configured, you'll see a powerful Grafana dashboard displaying:

• CPU & memory usage per container
• Disk I/O, network throughput
• Container uptime & health
• System-wide Docker stats

This dashboard eliminates the need to monitor your containers using CLI commands and provides a clear, visual overview that is ideal for debugging, reporting, and ongoing performance tuning.

Using Grafana, Prometheus, and cAdvisor, you can effortlessly monitor Docker containers in real time—without any command-line stress. This can be use not just container metrics, but also the host machine performance, network throughput, and resource usage trends. This setup is perfect for NOC engineers, Datacenter engineers, developers, DevOps engineers, or system administrators who prefer a visual interface for performance tracking.