How to Install New Relic Monitoring on Linux

#newrelic #linux #devops #monitoring

Keeping a Linux server healthy is not just about setting it up and hoping for the best. Servers run applications, databases, background tasks, and web services every second, which makes continuous visibility essential. With New Relic Monitoring, administrators can track system performance, detect slowdowns, and identify issues before they turn into outages. If something slows down or breaks, you need to know what happened and why it happened quickly.

This is where New Relic monitoring becomes extremely useful. New Relic helps you monitor your Linux server’s performance in real time. It shows CPU usage, memory consumption, disk activity, network traffic, and much more, all from a single dashboard. With proper monitoring in place, you can detect problems early, troubleshoot faster, and keep your applications running smoothly.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to install New Relic monitoring on a Linux server in simple terms.

What Is New Relic and Why Use It on Linux?

New Relic is an observability and monitoring platform used by developers and system administrators worldwide.

On Linux servers, it helps you:

Track CPU, RAM, disk, and network usage
Monitor system load and resource bottlenecks
Identify performance issues before users notice them
Get alerts when something goes wrong
View all metrics in a clean, visual dashboard

Whether you manage a single VPS or multiple production servers, New Relic gives you better visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes.

Prerequisites Before Installing New Relic

Before starting the installation for New Relic, make sure to check the prerequisites:

A Linux server (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Rocky Linux, etc.)
Root or sudo access to the server
A New Relic account (free or paid)
Internet access from the server

If these basics are ready, you can move forward confidently.

Step 1: Create a New Relic Account

Let’s start by creating a new account for installing New Relic on your server. No need to worry about any charges to pay as the free plan is perfectly suitable for initial bases.

Once you have created an account, log in to your New Relic dashboard

Step 2: Monitoring Method

Navigate to the Integrations & Agents section from the left sidebar.
Select PHP as a Data source.

You need to select your data collection method. Select On a host (tar archive) option from the given to monitor your server.

Step 3: Enter Credentials

Here, you have to provide your user and license key. These keys will link your monitoring agent with your account.
If you already have one, enter it in the given field by selecting Use an existing Key. Let’s create a new one if you don’t have it.
Click on the Create a new key buttonin license key and user key section, and it will generate a key for you.
Once it is generated, copy your license and user key. This license key is what connects your Linux server to your New Relic account. Keep it safe, as you’ll need it during configuration.
Click on the Continue button.

Step 4: Check Prerequisites

Verify the installed PHP version on your server.
You can directly run the given command to check your PHP version and compatibility.

php --version

After checking the PHP version, click on Continue.

Step 5: Download the Tar Distribution

Copy the given command and run it in your terminal.
The file will be named something like newrelic-php5-X.X.X.X-linux.tar.gz.
Enter the file’s name in the field below. It will automatically generate a command that you can run on your server to download the file.
Once the script is generated, download the tar file by copying the given command and pasting it into the terminal.