How to Check Your Server Resource Usage in cPanel

by · December 25, 2023

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When managing your account, you will need to learn how to view your CPU usage in cPanel. Knowing this information will help you understand how your server is performing so you can make changes if necessary. This ensures that your online presence is running smoothly at all times.

For example, if you notice a spike in usage while running a specific cron job, this may indicate there are issues with how it is coded. In this guide, we’ll explain what resource usage is and then explain how to view CPU usage in cPanel.

Web Hosting Resource Usage Limits

 

What is Resource Usage?

When your account requests the server to perform tasks, such as connecting to a database, running a PHP script, or sending email, it requires resources from the server’s CPUs (Central Processing Units), as well as disk access from the hard drive to complete the tasks.

The CPU resource is a limited one, as there are only a set number of processors per server. Depending on the level of hosting that you have, you have a different allotment for cPanel CPU usage that you don’t want to go over.

 

Going over the CPU limits assigned for your level of hosting could result in an email warning, or a temporary account suspension if the usage is severe enough. So being knowledgeable about the resource usage limits your account has, and how much your account is currently using, is important information to know.

 

Shared Hosting

With shared hosting generally being the entry-level hosting option, those CPUs are shared with all of the users placed on the same server.

In a shared hosting environment, it’s very important that no one is over-utilizing the CPU, which could lead to other users having their requests delayed or missed altogether.

If you are near or over your account’s CPU limit, we would strongly encourage you to take a look at our account suspensions article, as this goes more in-depth as to what exactly commonly causes high resource usage.

VPS Hosting

Virtual server hosting is a step-up from shared, but you are still sharing the same CPUs as the other VPS clients on that physical node.

On a VPS, your maximum load average should be a 1.00 in short bursts. However, ideally, your load should remain under around a 0.7 for the majority of the day.

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated servers being the top tier of hosting, you have full access to all of the CPU cores on your server.

On a dedicated server, ideally, you want to maintain a load average lower than the number of CPU cores (and threads) that you have. However, since it’s your own server, we won’t step in if your CPU usage is spiking, since you wouldn’t be affecting any other users.

Common Resource usages:

  • CPU usage:

CPU limit allows setting CPU limit in terms of cores.

The CPU cores on a server handle tasks that your account demands of them, including running a server-side PHP script, connecting to a database, or sending emails. One user monopolizing CPU usage can cause delays for other user’s website requests. If your website uses a database or relies on scripts like PHP, increasing your account’s CPU can improve your website’s performance.

I/O (inputs/outputs) usage, similar to CPU usage, represents how much disk activity your account is using. Any task which makes use of the server’s disk drive will consume I/O. Reaching the I/O limit will cause website processes to slow down and take much longer to complete.

  • Entry Process:

Entry Processes (EP) usually represents the max number of concurrent connections to Apache dynamic scripts as well as SSH and cron jobs running simultaneously.

Entry Processes are the number of concurrent processes serving your account. Understanding what constitutes a connection is critical because it’s more complicated than simply “the number of visitors on your website.” For example, if a visitor comes to your site and your homepage takes .1 seconds to load and generates only one HTTP connection, that visitor counts as one process for .1 seconds. Even though that visitor is still “viewing your site,” they no longer count as a connection until they do something else that generates another connection, like moving to a new page.

  • Physical Memory Usage (RAM) usage:

RAM is the memory allocated for your account. If this value reaches the limit you may begin to experience PHP errors (if applicable) on your website, or in very extreme cases may see a CloudLinux error page. These errors are typically only brief, and once the usage has reduced to below the limit, it will automatically clear.

Memory limit corresponds to the amount of memory actually used by the end customer’s processes.

Please note that the number of processes doesn’t represent the number of visitors you can have on your website at once.

This limit was created to prevent DoS attacks against web server. One of the fairly popular attacks is to tie up all the Apache connections by hitting some slow page on a server. Once all Apache slots are used up, no one else will be able to connect to the web server, causing it to appear to be down. The issue is worsened by CPU limits, as once the site starts to get slow due to CPU limit – it will respond to requests slower and slower, causing more and more connections to be tied up.

To solve that, we have created entry processes (often called concurrent connections) limit. It will limit the number of concurrent connections to Apache, causing web server to serve error 508 page ( Resource Limit Reached), once there number of concurrent requests for the site goes above the limit.

NPROC limits purpose is to define the maximum number of processes inside LVE. Such as ssh/cron/php/pop3/imap etc.

IO limit restricts the data throughput for the customer. They are in KB or MB/s. When the limit is reached, the processes are throttled (put to sleep). This makes sure that processes within LVE cannot go over the limit. Yet don’t stop working, nor getting killed – they just work slower when the limit is reached.

IOPS limits restrict the total number of read/write operations per second. When the limit is reached the read/write operations stop until the current second expires.

Inode Limits corresponds to the number of inodes on your account equals the number of files and folders you have on it. An inode usually equals one file, folder, email or any other Unix object in a file system.

 

View CPU Usage in cPanel

To view your CPU usage in cPanel, follow the steps below:

 

Step 1: Login into cPanel.

Step 2: For a quick view, in the right-hand sidebar, scroll until you see CPU Usage.

Step3: For more information, scroll down to the Metrics section and click on Resource usage to view data on resources your account is using.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to view your resource usage history

1) Log into your website’s cPanel

2) Scroll down to the Metrics section and click on “Resource Usage”

3) Once you are inside the Resource Usage section, the status will be displayed. To know more information, click on “Details“;

4) After clicking “Details”, choose the desired time frame you’d like to inspect and click “Submit“.

That’s all! You now know how to check on your hosting account resource usage in cPanel

Remember that you can always get in touch with our Support team throughout a ticket and ask us to do a resource usage audit for your account.

CPU_dashboard Report

 

With both VPS and dedicated server hosting, you can SSH directly into the server to find out your usage. If you’re on either platform you can read our guide on advanced server load monitoring to determine your resource usage levels from the terminal.

For both VPS and dedicated servers, we also have a large collection of articles on resolving server usage problems that can help you pinpoint what could be causing high usage for you.

If you still need further assistance, contact our support department directly.

 

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