Services - System Monitor

Overview

The System Monitor checks the status of your gateway/server on a regular interval -- anywhere from every 2 minutes to every 3 hours. If a system problem occurs, an e-mail alert is sent to your inbox or e-mail-enabled pager service. Two types system checks are performed:

• The port monitor checks the connection to services (for instance, a web server)
• The resource monitor checks system load, disk space, and memory usage

Requirements

• The Web Services software module must be running and firewall open (resource monitor only)

Activation

• Login to your account
• Click on Systems in the top navigation bar
• Select the target system from the list of active systems in your account
• Click on Port Monitor or Resource Monitor in the menu

Configuration

Port Monitor

In the port monitor section, select the ports that you wish to monitor. The service provides a standard list of ports:

• HTTP
• HTTPS
• FTP
• SSH
• TELNET
• SMTP
• SSH
• SUVA

Custom Port Monitoring -- Custom port monitoring is available to systems subscribed to the SOHO and SMB service level. Use this service to monitor any port (e.g. PCAnywhere, VNC, MySQL).

Resource Monitor

The resource monitor checks three resources on your server:

• System load
• Disk usage
• Swap memory usage

For each of the resources that you would like to monitor, you must i) enable the service and ii) set the threshold level.

System Load Average

The system load monitor tracks the load average over a 5-minute time span. Among other potential issues, this system check catches runaway processes, looping web scripts, and denial of service attacks. A load above 20 is busy, but manageable -- anything over 50 is trouble.

Disk Space

The disk space monitor checks the size of each partition and total disk space. (The check ignores your /boot partition and CD-ROM drives).

Swap Memory Usage

For speed and efficiency, the Linux operating system maximizes the use of physical memory (RAM) -- if your system has it, Linux will use it! A better indicator of memory usage is swap memory (definition: backing store/swap memory). If you find your swap memory stuck over 50%, you should either turn off unnecessary services or add more memory to your system.