Lightweight server monitoring tools for a VPS
How much monitoring does one VPS really need? Compare htop, Glances, Netdata, Beszel and Prometheus by what each costs to run, and when to move up.
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Performance Co-Pilot on Rocky and Alma
Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux already ship a full metrics stack. Start pmcd, find metrics with pminfo, watch them with pmrep, and cap pmlogger disk use.
Check your server for known CVEs
List every known CVE affecting the packages on your Debian or Ubuntu VPS with debsecan and debvulns, then alert only on the ones that are worth a reboot.
Self-host ntfy for server push alerts
Run ntfy on your own VPS behind TLS with Docker Compose. Lock topics with users and ACLs, then alert from cron and systemd OnFailure units.
A Linux server maintenance checklist
Weekly and monthly checks for a Linux server, plus the release upgrades, with the failure each one prevents and the restore test almost everyone skips.
Self-Hosted Log Management on One VPS
Run log management on one VPS: journald and logrotate first, then Loki or OpenSearch, with the RAM floors and retention rules that decide it.
Disk health monitoring on a VPS
On most VPS plans the disk is virtual and SMART never reaches the guest. Here is what you can really monitor, and how to alert before writes fail.
The watch command in Linux, properly
The watch command re-runs anything every two seconds. Pick a sane interval, highlight the diff, exit on change, and quote pipes so watch runs them.
CPU steal time and noisy neighbours on a VPS
Steal time is the CPU your VPS was ready to use and never got. Learn to read the vmstat st column and to tell a noisy neighbour from your own overload.
Numbat: watch what your AI agents do
Perplexity open sourced Numbat, an endpoint monitor that records what AI coding agents really do on your servers. What it sees, and what it cannot stop.
Ansible playbook to install Zabbix
An idempotent Ansible playbook that installs Zabbix server on Ubuntu 24.04, a vaulted database password that actually wins, and agents across your inventory.
VPS for trading bots: what actually matters
What a trading bot really needs from a VPS: restart discipline under systemd, a correct clock, safe API keys, heartbeats, and honest latency limits.
Manage multiple Linux servers: tools that work
SSH config, tmux, Ansible, Uptime Kuma, Zabbix and Webmin, ranked by how many servers you have: what each replaces, setup cost in minutes, the one gotcha.
Uptime Kuma: self-hosted status monitoring
Run Uptime Kuma in Docker to monitor websites, ports, DNS and cron jobs, alert via email or Telegram, and publish a status page from a separate VPS.
Zabbix monitoring on Ubuntu 24.04
Install Zabbix 7.0 LTS on Ubuntu 24.04: add the repo, import the MySQL schema, wire up the nginx frontend and agent2, then fix every error the setup throws.