pve-exporter/docs/alerting.md

Prometheus Alerting

The repository includes a ready-to-use example rule group in examples/pve-exporter.rules.yml. It covers node, guest, storage, subscription, physical disk, ZFS, SDN, clock-skew, and memory-overcommit conditions.

Enable the rule file

Make the rule file available to Prometheus and reference it from prometheus.yml:

rule_files:
  - /etc/prometheus/rules/pve-exporter.rules.yml

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: pve-exporter
    static_configs:
      - targets: [pve-exporter:9090]

For a containerized Prometheus deployment, mount the example at the configured path:

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:ro
      - ./examples/pve-exporter.rules.yml:/etc/prometheus/rules/pve-exporter.rules.yml:ro

Validate the file before reloading Prometheus:

promtool check rules examples/pve-exporter.rules.yml

Collector requirements

Prometheus evaluates a rule only when its referenced time series exist. Enable the matching exporter collectors:

Alerts	Required collector setting
Node filesystem, state, CPU, clock skew, memory overcommit	metrics.nodeStatus
Guest CPU and memory overcommit	metrics.qemu and/or metrics.lxc
Storage state and capacity	metrics.storage
Subscription expiration	metrics.subscription
Physical disk health and wear	metrics.disk
ZFS state and errors	metrics.zfs
SDN state	metrics.sdn

The default thresholds and for durations are operational examples. Review them against the size, workload, redundancy, and maintenance policy of your environment before enabling notifications.

Three rules require deployment-specific review:

• PveUnexpectedStandaloneMode should be removed or disabled when standalone PVE operation is expected.
• PveNodeSubscriptionMissing is informational and should be removed when unsubscribed nodes are intentional.
• PveExporterDown expects the Prometheus scrape job to be named pve-exporter; adjust its job matcher if a different name is used.

Every rule uses the cluster label. Standalone installations are supported and use the label value Standalone node - <node>.