In our web hosting accounts, a specified amount of disk space and monthly bandwidth is included. Different account types also have different amounts of system resources assigned to them (e.g. Web hosting account Standard has less system resources than Web hosting account Premium, and Web hosting account Deluxe has more system resources than Web hosting account Premium).
Usually, you shouldn’t need to worry about superseding these system resource limits, since they’re set quite high. However, it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the resource usage every now and then – something that’s easily done via cPanel. If you don’t know how to access cPanel, please refer to this guide.
Statistics in real time
The first and most bird’s-eye view of the resource usage information you’ll see immediately after logging on to cPanel; in the box to the right. Here you’ll see real-time information regarding CPU, memory, and disk usage, how much disk space and monthly bandwidth that’s left etc. If any of the bars are red, it means that you currently are using a lot of that specific resource. If this happens often you should consider upgrading your account or check what is using those resources.
Here you can also see information about entry processes running on the account right now. Entry processes is a measure of how many processes that are currently running and is in a way coupled to the number of visitors on websites on the account. Each time a visitor clicks a link on a website on the account, a process is started on the server, e.g. for PHP. Each such PHP process represents an entry process. The more entry processes your account can handle, the more visitors are allowed at the same time.
Keep in mind that an entry process is stopped and removed once the website is done loading. So if you have a maximum of 50 entry processes on the account, this doesn’t mean that you are limited to 50 visitors on your website at any given moment. Instead, it means that among visitors on the website, a maximum of 50 can click links at once.
Statistics from earlier
You may also check system resource usage from earlier via cPanel. To get started, click the icon Resource Usage under Metrics.
If your account has encountered any problems during the last 24 hours, you will see one or more error messages regarding this. To get more information, click Details or the tab Current usage.
You will now see a number of graphs detailing your account’s resource usage during the last day. You’ll be able to see the amount of CPU, RAM and I/O (reads and writes from and to disk) your account has been using during the last day. If you hover your mouse over the graphs, you’ll see more information.
Just above the graphs you may also select a different time frame, so you e.g. can see the resource usage for the last four hours (with increased detail).
The account displayed in the graphs here has had a rather high load, and if you look at the Faults graph, it appears to max out every now and then. A fault occurs when your assigned CPU or memory resources run out.
If you investigate the graphs in the earlier picture, it seems like the account has not run out of resources. But sometimes an account hit its limits without it being obvious in the graphs since it happens for such a short time. If faults occur, they will, however, be visible in the Faults graph.
This specific account should need to be upgraded to a hosting package including more system resources to ensure consistent website performance.
Snapshots
Under the tab Snapshots you can see detailed information from earlier when any kind of faults have occurred.
The snapshot feature does as the name implies, it saves snapshots – specifically from when faults occur. It will save a snapshot containing information about processes, database queries and HTTP requests from the moment when the fault occurred.
First, you need to select a day from which you want to see snapshots, and also a specific time.
Now you select what kind of information you’d like to see, if you want to see processes that ran on the account (Process list), what Database Queries that was running, or what requests that was being done towards LSWS or Apache (HTTP Queries).
Once you’ve done that, you should see a list of everything that went on with your account at the chosen moment.
Bandwidth usage
You can also monitor bandwidth usage via cPanel. To do this, log on to cPanel and click Bandwidth under Metrics.
Near the top of the page, you can see the total monthly bandwidth used by your account during the current month. This specific account has used 50% of the bandwidth quota.
Just below this, you can see what has used the bandwidth – one graph for the last day, the last week and the last year.
In this specifik case, almost all bandwidth has been used by HTTP (website traffic). If you have keen eyes you may notice a tiny amount of bandwidth being used by IMAP (email) in the first graph).
Below the graphs, you can see more detailed information about what part of you service that has used bandwidth, and also see what websites that has used it.
