Merge branch 'master' into bjoern/deal-with-complicated-todos

Conflicts:
	README.md

Change-Id: Ia9cf8c3498ec6238669f52b4114f3db54dd0bd07

Dockerfile

@@ -4,7 +4,9 @@ EXPOSE     9090
 VOLUME     [ "/prometheus" ]
 WORKDIR    /prometheus
 
-ENTRYPOINT [ "/prometheus-src/.build/package/run_prometheus.sh" ]
+ENTRYPOINT [ "/prometheus-src/prometheus" ]
+CMD        [ "-config.file=/prometheus.conf" ]
 RUN        apt-get update && apt-get install -yq make git curl sudo mercurial vim-common
 ADD        . /prometheus-src
 RUN        cd /prometheus-src && make tools binary
+ADD        ./documentation/examples/prometheus.conf /prometheus.conf

README.md

@@ -1,21 +1,24 @@
 # Prometheus
 
-Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus!  A new kid is in town.
+Prometheus is a systems and service monitoring system. It collects metrics
+from configured targets at given intervals, evaluates rule expressions,
+displays the results, and can trigger alerts if some condition is observed
+to be true.
 
-Prometheus is a generic time series collection and computation server that is
-useful in the following fields:
+Prometheus' main distinguishing features as compared to other monitoring systems are:
 
-* Industrial Experimentation / Real-Time Behavioral Validation / Software Release Qualification
-* Econometric and Natural Sciences
-* Operational Concerns and Monitoring
+- a **multi-dimensional** data model (timeseries defined by metric name and set of key/value dimensions)
+- a **flexible query language** to leverage this dimensionality
+- no dependency on distributed storage; **single server nodes are autonomous**
+- timeseries collection happens via a **pull model** over HTTP
+- **pushing timeseries** is supported via an intermediary gateway
+- targets are discovered via **service discovery** or **static configuration**
+- multiple modes of **graphing and dashboarding support**
+- **federation support** coming soon
 
-The system is designed to collect telemetry from named targets on given
-intervals, evaluate rule expressions, display the results, and trigger an
-action if some condition is observed to be true.
+## Architecture overview
 
-TODO: The above description is somewhat esoteric. Rephrase it into
-something that tells normal people how they will usually benefit from
-using Prometheus.
+![](https://cdn.rawgit.com/prometheus/prometheus/9c43ed7/documentation/images/architecture.svg)
 
 ## Install
 
@@ -24,25 +27,22 @@ There are various ways of installing Prometheus.
 ### Precompiled packages
 
 We plan to provide precompiled binaries for various platforms and even
-packages for common Linux distribution soon. Once those are offered,
+packages for common Linux distributions soon. Once those are offered,
 it will be the recommended way of installing Prometheus.
 
 ### Use `make`
 
 In most cirumstances, the following should work:
 
-    $ make
-    $ ARGUMENTS="-config.file=documentation/examples/prometheus.conf" make run
-
-``${ARGUMENTS}`` is passed verbatim to the commandline starting the Prometheus binary.
-This is useful for quick one-off invocations and smoke testing.
+    $ make build
+    $ ./prometheus -config.file=documentation/examples/prometheus.conf
 
 The above requires a number of common tools to be installed, namely
 `curl`, `git`, `gzip`, `hg` (Mercurial CLI), `sed`, `xxd`. Should you
 need to change any of the protocol buffer definition files
 (`*.proto`), you also need the protocol buffer compiler
-[`protoc`](http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/](http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/),
-v2.5.0 or higher, in your `$PATH`.
+[`protoc`](http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/), v2.5.0 or higher,
+in your `$PATH`.
 
 Everything else will be downloaded and installed into a staging
 environment in the `.build` sub-directory. That includes a Go
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ The `Makefile` offers a number of useful targets. Some examples:
 
 * `make test` runs tests.
 * `make tarball` creates a tarball with the binary for distribution.
-* `make race_condition_run` compiles and runs a binary with the race detector enabled.
+* `make race_condition_run` compiles and runs a binary with the race detector enabled. To pass arguments when running Prometheus this way, set the `ARGUMENTS` environment variable (e.g. `ARGUMENTS="-config.file=./prometheus.conf" make race_condition_run`).
 
 ### Use your own Go development environment
 
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ do that.
 
   * The source code is periodically indexed: [Prometheus Core](http://godoc.org/github.com/prometheus/prometheus).
   * You will find a Travis CI configuration in `.travis.yml`.
-  * All of the core developers are accessible via the [Prometheus Developers Mailinglist](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/prometheus-developers).
+  * All of the core developers are accessible via the [Prometheus Developers Mailinglist](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/prometheus-developers) and the `#prometheus` channel on `irc.freenode.net`.
 
 ## Contributing