The Monitoring service: the agent installed on the server

What the “Monitoring 24/7” add-on service gives you, how to get it, what it installs on the server and what you need to keep running.

The “Monitoring 24/7” add-on service installs an agent on your server that sends system metrics to BLACKBOX every 30 seconds: processor, memory, disk, network and processes. With it, the “Monitoring” page in the app.blackbox.md panel (app.blackbox.md/monitoring, sidebar → “Infrastructure” → “Monitoring”) shows live values and trend charts for that server. The service costs 98 MDL/month per server.

Available to: the blackbox.md account owner, for VPS servers ordered from their account that run Ubuntu or Debian. You get the service through support or through an AI assistant, not on the order page.

The blackbox.md website is available in Romanian and Russian; this article quotes the Romanian labels with their English meaning.

What you get

Item	Details
Name in “Comenzi” (Orders)	“Monitoring 24/7”
Price	98 MDL/month per server. The amount is added to the total of the server's order and is paid monthly together with it.
Operating systems	Ubuntu and Debian.
Data collection	System metrics, every 30 seconds.
“Your servers” table	The “CPU”, “RAM”, “Disk” (the `/` partition), “Load (1m)” and “Processes” columns, plus the service state in the “Monitoring” column.
“Trends” section	The “CPU usage (%)”, “RAM usage (%)”, “Disk usage (%)”, “Network (bytes/s)”, “Load average (1m)” and “Processes” charts, for ranges from “1 h” to “90 days”. The page shows “Source: live metrics (Prometheus)” and “Prometheus keeps about 15 days of history.”

How to read the table and the charts: The “Monitoring” page.

How to get the service

You can't choose add-on services on the blackbox.md order page. You have two options: support, or an AI assistant connected through MCP.

Through support

Open a ticket from “Contul meu” (My account) → “Ajutor și suport” (Help and support), or write to support@blackbox.md. See Opening a support ticket.
Say that you want the “Monitoring 24/7” service and for which server: the order number BBX-… of an existing server, or the plan and operating system (Ubuntu or Debian) of a new server.
The team replies and tells you how it can be done. Adding the service to an existing server is decided case by case with support.

Through the AI assistant (MCP)

You need an API token with the “Plasează și modifică comenzi în numele meu” (Place and change orders on my behalf) permission (orders:write). See Token permissions (scopes). Through the assistant, you can order the service only together with a new server.

Ask the assistant to prepare an order for a VPS plan with Ubuntu or Debian and the monitoring service. Tell it explicitly to add "extras": ["monitoring"] to config in the create_order tool. For example:
```
Prepare an order for the vm-iops1-m plan with Ubuntu 24.04 and the monitoring service: in create_order, add "extras": ["monitoring"] to config. Show me the price and wait for my confirmation.
```
Check the proposed price: it must be the plan price plus 98 MDL. For example, Standard M (vm-iops1-m) costs 578 MDL/month, and 676 MDL/month with the service. If the total equals the plan price, the service was not included.
Confirm. The order appears in “Contul meu” → “Comenzi” (Orders) with the status “Nou” (New).
Pay for the order: from your balance through the assistant, or with the “Achită comanda” (Pay for the order) button on the “Comenzi” page.

More about orders through AI: Orders, payments, cancellations and upgrades via AI.

Important The agent installs only on Ubuntu and Debian. On CentOS Stream 9 or AlmaLinux 9 the installation does not happen: in “Comenzi” the service stays “În curs de activare” (Activating), and the “Monitoring” page shows “Failed”. In that case, write to us.

What gets installed on the server

Once the server is ready, BLACKBOX connects to it over SSH with the management key and installs the agent automatically. You don't need to do anything.

Item	On the server
Service	`alloy` (the Grafana Alloy agent). It starts automatically when the server starts.
Package source	The vendor's official repository, `apt.grafana.com` (the files `/etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list` and `/etc/apt/keyrings/grafana.gpg`). If the repository doesn't respond, the version published on `github.com` is installed in `/usr/local/bin/alloy`.
Configuration	`/etc/alloy/config.alloy`
What it sends	System metrics: processor, memory, disk and network usage, the number of processes and other figures of the same kind. The contents of your files and the data of your applications are not sent.
Where it sends them	To BLACKBOX, over HTTPS, with a key unique to your server, written in the configuration file.
Installation log	`/var/log/blackbox-monitoring-install.log`

Security The /etc/alloy/config.alloy file contains the server's key and is managed by BLACKBOX. Don't change it, and don't share its contents with anyone else. The key only allows sending this server's metrics.

What to keep running

For the metrics to reach the panel:

Don't stop or disable the alloy service, and don't uninstall the alloy package.
Don't block outbound HTTPS traffic (port 443). If you filter outbound traffic with ufw or firewalld, allow HTTPS. Before you change the rules, keep a second SSH session open. See Firewall: network filtering and ufw/firewalld on the server.
Don't remove the “Management key (blackbox.md)” from authorized_keys: BLACKBOX uses it to install and uninstall the agent. See BLACKBOX keys on your server.
Don't change /etc/alloy/config.alloy.

If the agent is stopped or can't send data, the charts stop receiving new values.

How to check the agent

Connect to the server over SSH as root and run:

systemctl status alloy

The Active: line must show active (running). To see the agent's latest messages, run:

journalctl -u alloy -n 50 --no-pager

If you stopped the agent by mistake, start it again and enable it at boot:

systemctl enable --now alloy

Then click “Refresh” on the “Monitoring” page. If the values don't come back, write to us.

Service status

The service status appears in two places.

In “Contul meu” (My account) → “Comenzi” (Orders) (blackbox.md/account/orders), below the order description, as a label of the form “Monitoring 24/7: Activ” (Monitoring 24/7: Active). The label appears after payment, when the server starts being created.

State	What it means
“În curs de activare” (Activating)	The agent is being installed, or the installation is waiting for the team to step in (for example, on an unsupported operating system).
“Activ” (Active)	The agent is running, and BLACKBOX is receiving the metrics.
“Contactați suportul” (Contact support)	The automatic installation failed after several attempts. Write to us and include the `BBX-…` number.
“Anulat” (Canceled)	The service was stopped, for example because the server was deleted.

In the panel, on the “Monitoring” page, in the “Monitoring” column of the “Your servers” table:

State	What it means
“Connecting…”	The installation is in progress. The values in the table show as “—”.
“Active”	The agent is sending metrics; you see the values and the charts.
“Failed”	The installation failed or can't be done automatically (for example, on an unsupported operating system). Write to us.

The status changes to “Active” (“Activ” in “Comenzi”) only after the first metrics reach BLACKBOX, not right after the installation.

Canceling the service and deleting the server

There is no button to stop the service. To cancel it, write to support.
When an active service is canceled, BLACKBOX uninstalls the agent from the server: it stops alloy and removes the package, the package repository it added, /etc/alloy and the agent's data directories. The server's key is revoked, so its metrics are no longer accepted.
When the server is deleted (from the panel or by canceling the order), the agent goes away with the server, the key is revoked, and the label in “Comenzi” (Orders) usually changes to “Anulat” (Canceled). See Permanently deleting a server.

Frequently asked questions

Can I select the service when I order the server on blackbox.md? No. The order page has no options for add-on services. Request the service through support or through an AI assistant, as described above.

Can I add the service to a server I already have? Your account and the panel have no such option. Write to support: whether it is possible is decided case by case.

My server doesn't appear in the “Your servers” table. Why? The table with live values shows the servers that have the “Monitoring 24/7” service, in any state except “Anulat” (Canceled). A server without the service has no live metrics. See The “Monitoring” page.

How much history do the charts show? The page states: “Prometheus keeps about 15 days of history.” For the “30 days” and “90 days” ranges, the charts show only the period for which data exists.

“Comenzi” (Orders) shows “Activ” (Active), but the charts no longer update. Check on the server that the alloy service is running and that outbound HTTPS traffic isn't blocked (see “How to check the agent”). Then click “Refresh”. If the problem persists, write to us.