When it comes to managing your server, uptime is always at the front of your mind. While you want to know that you’re hosting with a provider who is keeping you online, it’s hard not to wonder about it from time to time – especially if you’re running a self-managed VPS server. No matter how reliable your provider has proven itself to be, the question of “am I still online?” will always be near the front of your mind.
Why You Must Monitor Your VPS
Monitoring your VPS is incredibly important because it helps you understand several key things. Sure, whether you’re online or not is certainly a part of it, but there are also questions about security issues and data integrity to consider. That’s why it’s important to also implement additional levels of protection, such as host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) to ensure that your server is free from corruption, intrusion or attack. In addition to the ever-so-important uptime, you should also keep constant watch over your DNS, your database and your server load & current processes.
Setting Up Your Own Uptime Monitoring Service
The best way to get full coverage of your server is to segment what you’re monitoring and to use separate practices or applications for each of them. Pingdom is pretty much the industry standard for monitoring uptime. Even with the free service plan, Pingdom bounces a request to your server every 5 minutes. If your server fails to respond, you receive an email immediately. That means that should your server go down, you’re notified within 5 minutes. This is a great start!
Monitoring Your DNS Records
But what about everything else you want to keep an eye on? It’s important to watch your DNS settings because they are a common target for cyber criminals who can manipulate your DNS to assist them in a myriad of malicious activities. We recommend monitoring your DNS by executing the dns_get_record() command. This command should be executed at least once per day, but the more frequent the better!
Monitoring Your Database Connections
It’s also important to monitor the connection to your database. You should not only keep all software up-to-date, but also perform regular data hygiene to ensure that no intrusions have been made that may have compromised the security of your database. One of the most common attacks to watch for is the SQL attack. This can be easily avoided through regular maintenance and taking preventative measures, but it’s important to regularly seek out any possible intrusions within your own database. Unusual activity or unfamiliar commands are a great indicator that you may be compromised.
Monitoring Your Server Loads & Current Processes
Your server’s load & current processes figures can be broken out into inodes. Managing your inode count is possible in cPanel by reviewing the “Stats” and looking for “File Usage.” You may also find these totals by using command line functions:
On a full server: find . | wc – l
Within a particular folder or directory:
find . –printf “%h\n” | cut –d/ -f-2 | sort | uniq –c | sort
Optimizing Your VPS Performance
Remember, monitoring these areas is only part of the battle. This monitoring provides information but it’s up to you to utilize the data they make available to improve the total overall performance of your VPS. SemoWeb can help with that. If you aren’t completely sure that you are ready to take on the mission of server management yourself, use the LiveChat feature on our site to speak with one of our Systems Experts about our managed VPS hosting plans. Elite VPS performance without the skill or time commitment typical of VPS hosting – It just may be the answer you need!