Cloud server with Monitoring Box

Last update: July 24 2026

Monitoring Box — a monitoring software suite that contains:

• Grafana — an open-source platform for data visualization and monitoring;
• VictoriaMetrics — high-performance monitoring system and time-series database optimized for handling large volumes of data.

You can create a cloud server with Monitoring Box. In Russia, the application runs on a cloud server with a configured SelectOS 1 64-bit operating system. In other countries — Ubuntu 22.04.

Before creating a cloud server with an application, read the software license agreements included in the image.

Minimum resource requirements

vCPU count	1
RAM	2 GB
Boot volume	20 GB

Create a cloud server with Monitoring Box

For Monitoring Box to work, the cloud server must be accessible from the internet. To do this, when creating the server, you need to create a private subnet and attach a public floating IP address. To configure Monitoring Box, you must specify the application parameters when creating the server.

After the server with Monitoring Box is created, a free TLS certificate from Let’s Encrypt® will be automatically issued for the domain you specify. To issue the certificate, you need to add an A record for the domain and specify the server's public floating IP address as the record value. You can add the domain to Selectel DNS Hosting (actual).

1. Create a public floating IP address.

2. Add an A record for the domain.

3. Optional: to collect cloud server metrics, create a service user.

4. Create a cloud server with Monitoring Box.

1. Create a public floating IP address

Create a public floating IP address so that the cloud server with Monitoring Box is accessible from the internet.

Use the Create a public floating IP address section of the Public Floating IP Addresses guide.

2. Add an A record for the domain

Add a resource record to access Monitoring Box by domain.

Specify:

• resource record type in the group — A; ;
• record value — the public floating IP address that you created in step 1.

3. Optional: create a service user

The Account Owner or users with the iam.admin role can create users.

To collect cloud server metrics, create a service user, and in the permissions, select the reader role and the access scope Account.

Cloud server metrics will be collected in VictoriaMetrics and visualized in Grafana.

4. Create a server with Monitoring Box

1. In the Control panel, on the top menu, click Products and select Cloud Servers.

2. Click Create server.

3. Fill in the blocks:

   • Name and placement;
   • Source;
   • Configuration;
   • Disks;
   • Internet;
   • Private network;
   • Security;
   • Access;
   • Additional settings.

4. Check the cloud server price.

5. Click Create.

Name and placement

1. Enter the server name. It will be set as the host name in the operating system.

2. Select a location where the server will be created. The list of available server configurations and the resource cost depend on the location. You cannot change the location after the server is created.

Source

1. Откройте вкладку Приложения.

2. Select Cloud Monitoring Box.

3. Optional: if you need a different current or archived version of the application, select the required version in the Version field.

4. Fill in the application parameters:

4.1. In the Domain Zone field, enter the domain for Grafana access that you added in step 2.

4.2. Enter the administrator's email address.

4.3. Enter the Grafana administrator username. If the parameter is not set, the default value is admin.

4.4. Enter the Grafana administrator password.

4.5. Optional: click Additional Application Parameters and specify:

• IP address or CIDR of the administrator from which Grafana will be accessible. If the IP address or CIDR is not specified, access will be granted from all IP addresses;

• the retention period — the number of days metrics will be stored. By default, metrics are stored for 30 days;

• Selectel account ID — the account number whose cloud server metrics you want to collect. You can find it in the Control Panel in the top right corner.

4.6. If you specified a Selectel account ID in step 4.5, specify:

• the Selectel service account username — the name of the service user you created in step 3;

• the Selectel service account password — the password of the service user you created in step 3.

Configuration

Select a configuration from 1 vCPU, RAM starting from 2 GB and a boot disk size starting from 20 GB. For all lines, except Shared and Dedicated, two types of server configurations are available:

• fixed configurations — configurations of lines with different technical specifications where the resource ratio is fixed;
• custom configurations — configurations where any resource ratio can be specified.

Configurations use different processors depending on the line and pool segment. You can adjust the selected configuration. After creating the server, you will be able to change the configuration.

Fixed configuration

1. Open the tab with the line.

2. Click Fixed.

3. Optional: you can adjust the configuration if you are creating a server in a multi-AZ pool segment ru-6 or pool segments ru-3b, ru-7a, and ru-7b:

   3.1. Open the block with a description of the configuration settings.

   3.2. Optional: select a processor vendor. This selection is not available in all pools.

   3.3. Optional: if you do not want physical CPU cores to be reserved for the cloud server's vCPUs, deselect the Dedicated cores checkbox. Learn more in the Dedicated cores instruction.

   3.4. Optional: if for a server with dedicated cores you want to disable Hyper-Threading, deselect the Hyper-Threading (SMT) checkbox.

   3.5. Optional: if you are creating a server with dedicated cores and want to place a multiprocessor server on a single NUMA node, select the Mandatory placement on a single NUMA node checkbox. A server with 4 vCPUs or more can be placed on a single NUMA node. If the cloud server resources cannot be placed on one node, it will not be created. Learn more in the Placing on a single NUMA node subsection of the Dedicated cores instruction.

4. Select a configuration.

5. If both local and network volumes are available in the selected configuration, select the volume to be used as the boot volume:

   • local volume — select the Local SSD NVMe volume checkbox. A server with a local volume can be created only from images and applications;
   • network volume — do not select the Local SSD NVMe volume checkbox.

   The amount of RAM allocated to the server may be less than specified in the configuration — the operating system kernel reserves a portion of RAM depending on the kernel version and distribution. You can check the allocated capacity on the server using the sudo dmesg | grep Memory command.

Custom configuration

1. Open the tab with the line.

2. Click Custom.

3. Optional: you can adjust the configuration if you are creating a server in a multi-AZ pool segment ru-6 or pool segments ru-3b, ru-7a, and ru-7b:

   3.1. Expand the block with a description of the configuration settings.

   3.2. Optional: select a processor vendor. This selection is not available in all pools.

   3.3. Optional: if you do not want physical CPU cores to be reserved for the cloud server's vCPUs, deselect the Dedicated cores checkbox. Learn more in the Dedicated cores instruction.

   3.4. Optional: if for a cloud server with dedicated cores you want to disable Hyper-Threading, deselect the Hyper-Threading (SMT) checkbox.

   3.5. Optional: if you are creating a cloud server with dedicated cores and want to place a multiprocessor server on a single NUMA node, select the Mandatory placement on a single NUMA node checkbox. A cloud server with 4 vCPUs or more can be placed on a single NUMA node. If the cloud server resources cannot be placed on one node, it will not be created. Learn more in the Placing on a single NUMA node subsection of the Dedicated cores instruction.

4. Specify the number of vCPUs.

5. Specify the RAM size.

6. If you need to add GPUs to the server, click Add GPU, select the GPU type and specify the number of GPUs. The selected line will change to the GPU line. If you selected an image without GPU optimization in the Source block and the Automatic GPU image selection toggle is turned on, the selected image will automatically change to a GPU-optimized image.

7. If both local and network volumes are available in the selected configuration, select the volume to be used as the boot volume:

   • local volume — select the Local SSD NVMe volume checkbox. A server with a local volume can be created only from images and applications;
   • network volume — do not select the Local SSD NVMe volume checkbox.

   The amount of RAM allocated to the server may be less than specified in the configuration — the operating system kernel reserves a portion of RAM depending on the kernel version and distribution. You can check the allocated capacity on the server using the sudo dmesg | grep Memory command.

Volumes

1. If you did not select the Local SSD NVMe volume checkbox when configuring, the first specified network volume will be used as the server boot volume. To configure it:

   1.1. Select the network boot volume type.

   1.2. Specify the size of the network boot volume in GB or TB. Account for network volume limits for the maximum size.

   1.3. If you chose the Universal v2 or Fast SSD v2 volume type, specify the total IOPS for read and write operations. After creating the volume, you can change the number of IOPS — decrease or increase it. The number of IOPS changes is unlimited.

2. Optional: add an additional network volume of the server :

   2.1. Click Add.

   2.2. Select the network volume type.

   2.3. Specify the size of the network disk in GB or TB. Account for network volume limits for the maximum size.

   2.4. If you chose the Universal v2 or Fast SSD v2 volume type, specify the total IOPS for read and write operations. After creating the volume, you can change the number of IOPS — decrease or increase it. The number of IOPS changes is unlimited.

   After creating the server, you will be able to connect new additional volumes.

Internet

Configure public access to the server.

The cloud server will be added to a private subnet that is connected to a cloud router with 1:1 NAT and internet access. Access to and from the internet will be managed through the cloud router. The server will be accessible from the internet via a public floating IP address.

1. In the Connection from the internet field, select the Public floating IP address access type.

2. Select the public floating IP address that you created in Step 1.

Private network

A cloud server can be added to an existing or a new private subnet.

Existing private subnet

1. In the Subnet field, select a private subnet.

2. Optional: in the IP address field, change the default IP address.

3. In the Router field, select an existing router or create a new one.

   If the router is not connected to the internet, it will be automatically connected to the internet after the server is created.

New private subnet

1. In the Subnet field, select New private subnet.

2. In the Network field, select an existing network or create a new one.

3. Optional: change the subnet CIDR.

4. Optional: in the IP address field, change the default IP address.

5. In the Router field, select an existing router or create a new one.

   If the router is not connected to the internet, it will be automatically connected to the internet after the server is created.

Security

Select security groups to filter traffic on server ports. Without security groups, traffic will be blocked. If the block is missing, traffic filtering (port security) is disabled in the server's network. With traffic filtering disabled, all traffic will be allowed.

Access

Place an SSH key for the project on the server for secure connection:

• if an SSH key for the project has not been added to the cloud platform, click Add SSH key, enter the key name, paste the public key in OpenSSH format, and click Add;
• if an SSH key for the project has been added to the cloud platform, select an existing key in the SSH key field. The SSH key is only available in the pool where it is hosted.

Password access is disabled in the image.

Additional settings

1. Optional: if you plan to create multiple servers and want to increase infrastructure fault tolerance, add the server to a placement group:

   1.1. To create a new group, in the Placement group field, click Create.

   1.2. Select New group and enter the group name.

   1.3. Select the placement policy on different hosts:

   • preferable — soft-anti-affinity. The system will try to place servers on different hosts. If there is no suitable host when creating the server, it will be created on the same host;
   • mandatory — anti-affinity. Servers in the group must be placed on different hosts. If there is no suitable host when creating the server, the server will not be created.

   1.4. If the group is created, in the Placement group field, select the placement group.

2. Optional: to add additional information or filter servers in the list, add server tags. Operating system and configuration tags are added automatically. To add a new tag, enter it in the Tags field.

3. Make sure the User data toggle is turned off.