Grafana Cloud Monitoring Setup (Apache + PHP-FPM + Alloy)

Source: Dev.to

Step 1: Install Grafana Alloy on EC2

• Go to Grafana Cloud → Collector → Configure.
• Create a new API token.
• Copy & paste the installation command provided by Grafana into your EC2 instance.

After installation, run:

cd /etc/alloy

Open the configuration file:

sudo nano config.alloy

• Paste the Alloy configuration (config.alloy). (Do not change the credentials for Prometheus, Loki, and remotecfg.)
• Comment your GitHub profile if you’d like to receive the config.alloy file.

Restart Alloy:

sudo systemctl restart alloy.service

Confirm that Alloy is connected in Grafana Cloud.

Step 2: Verify System Metrics in Grafana

• Navigate to Grafana Cloud → Fleet Management.
• Select the EC2 instance (identified by its IP).
• Use Explore to verify that CPU, memory, disk, and other system metrics are being received.

Step 3: Enable Apache mod_status

Edit status.conf:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/status.conf

Add (if not present):

SetHandler server-status
Require local

Restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

Step 4: Enable PHP‑FPM Status & Ping Pages

4.1 Update www.conf

sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Add or modify the following directives:

listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
listen.mode = 0660
ping.path = /ping
pm.status_path = /status
listen = /run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock

Restart PHP‑FPM:

sudo systemctl restart php8.1-fpm

Verify that the socket file /run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock exists.

4.2 Create php-fpm-status.conf

sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/php-fpm-status.conf

Paste:

SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"

SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"

Restart services:

sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl restart php8.1-fpm

Step 5: Enable Required Apache Modules

sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_fcgi setenvif
sudo a2enconf php-fpm-status
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 6: Install PHP‑FPM Exporter

6.1 Download & Install Exporter

wget https://github.com/hipages/php-fpm_exporter/releases/download/v2.2.0/php-fpm_exporter_2.2.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
tar -xvzf php-fpm_exporter_2.2.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv php-fpm_exporter /usr/local/bin/

6.2 Create Exporter User

sudo useradd --system --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin phpfpm_exporter
sudo usermod -aG www-data phpfpm_exporter

6.3 Create Systemd Service

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/php-fpm-exporter.service

Paste:

[Unit]
Description=PHP-FPM Prometheus Exporter
After=network.target

[Service]
User=phpfpm_exporter
Group=www-data
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/php-fpm_exporter server \
  --phpfpm.scrape-uri='unix:///run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;/status' \
  --web.listen-address=':9253'
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

6.4 Start the Service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now php-fpm-exporter
sudo systemctl status php-fpm-exporter

6.5 Test Metrics

curl http://127.0.0.1/status
curl http://127.0.0.1:9253/metrics

Restart Alloy to pick up the new exporter:

sudo systemctl restart alloy

Step 7: Verify PHP‑FPM Metrics in Grafana

• In Grafana Cloud → Explore, search for PHP‑FPM metrics such as:

phpfpm_active_processes
phpfpm_requests_total
phpfpm_slow_requests

• Confirm that Apache, system, and PHP‑FPM metrics are now visible.