Monitoring the performance of your recently purchased VPS server is just as important as its security, and that’s why we want to bring some useful programs to your attention through this article. Some monitoring programs are provided by the operating system, while others will need to be installed. We will assume that CentOS operating system is installed on your VPS.
The list of programs that can be used by a server administrator includes the following items:
– top command – allows real-time viewing of server running processes, while providing information on resource consumption
– vmstat 3 command – it offers a real-time report on resource usage on the server
– w command – it provides information about users logged on the server
– uptime command – shows how many users are logged, how long the server is active for, the local time of the server, and CPU load time for predefined time intervals, respectively 1, 5 and 15 minutes
– the ps -aux command – displays a list of processes running on the server, along with details about resource consumption, the user of the initiating process, and the related PID
– free command – shows information about the total RAM of the server, RAM consumption and also how much Swap memory is used at the server level. Alternatively, you can use free -m command to see the information using Mb instead of Kb.
– netstat -all command – lists all active server-level connections, along with details of the port type and the traffic generated, such as open ports in firewall
– iptraf – is a program that displays real-time statistics about network activity. To install the program, you need to enter the command yum install iptraf. To run the program, use run the iptraf command.
– htop – is an improved version of the top program. You can install it by entering the command yum install htop.
The use of these programs can help you detect any problems that may arise, so that the administrator will be able to implement the appropriate measures to ensure the proper functioning of the server.