VPS monitoring

[ispsg]

Do I have to monitor my server status, managed/reboot from crashes etc myself;
Or PowerVPS will monitor the server load, alert us of unusual activity, update anti-virus application for us?

thanks

[Hvu]

Your gonna have to monitor server load and manage reboots yourself. Its pretty easy login to VZPP and press reboot. As for updating anti-virus those *should* do automatically. Unusual activity like what?

[ispsg]

Unusual activity like what?
Like user using the server for spamming or running some scripts that take up high load, hackers scanning the ports or whatever...
I mean I alone cannot be 24/7 monitor for clashes and initial reboot even is a click of button.

If that being the case, reseller would be more suitable for starter like me and let powervps to do the server maintenance/ monitoring.

[Hvu]

Not sure because I do all my maintence and the server rarely goes down *IF* you set it up properly. Have PVPS set it up for you and come here for tweaks and help info. Scanning ports, PVPS installs a firewall and you can request them to install automatic IP block on certain amount of hack attempts (Like scanning ports that are closed, the hacker scans 5 and then the firewall blocks them). As for scripts that take up high load if your running php in CGI/phpsuexec mode then use a System resource program to make sure the script gets killed before it takes over the server. This all can be installed by PVPS.

I been running my site since Aug 2004 with DefenderHosting (Before they bought PowerVPS) and havnt had downtime due to hackers / clients. 100% uptime here. With the help of PVPS and these forum boards I have a high performance server that spits out 100% dynamic php/mysql at over 100pages/sec (Tested with Apache Bench). I wouldnt go with any other provider that supply VPS.

As for not knowning what your doing, PVPS manages most everything for you. They have support 24/7 even phone support. I never had to call in since tickets are answered in 10mins or less.

[ispsg]

HVU, thanks for your reply.

Did tried the PVPS support thru email and get replied within 10mins. Very good indeed.
But I would say the forum here is not as active compared to my current host which can replies from users and moderators/administrators as the forum is used as "1st level" technical support/enquiry before sending out a ticket for actual technical request.

Anyway, read many good comments from other forums and I will give it a try.

[charles]

Just want to clarify 2 things

1. We dont offer phone support sorry. Your best bet willl *always* be to email support. If you call at 3am and I am on call, you'll just get a very cranky response like "ok, please email support".

2. These forums are not a formal means of support. It's very difficult to support you in this environment, whereas when you submit a ticket we know who you are, what vps you have, we can see your recent support tickets, etc.

So ask here is your not in a hurry or its non critical, but submit a ticket to support if you expect an answer :)

hth
charles

[Robert]

As Charles said... the ticket/email system 99.99% of the time will be the very best route to go if you need a QUICK response. Our average ticket turnaround time is about 15 minutes.

Basically regarding what we do and do not do.... we do NOT monitor your indiviudal VPS to ensure that it's online or that it's indivdual services are online. That's the account owner's responsibility. Many of the panels have they're own self-monitoring system in place that checks for failed services, but if those self-monitors fail (if you hit your memory limit) the service will remain offline.

What we DO help with... if you submit a ticket saying a service is offline, we'll investigate it for you. We're happy to help you bring the service online and *TRY* to determine the cause of the failure. I say try because if you have a script that hogs all of your memory, we may not be able to see it before it dies off and the useage returns to normal. We can most likely tell you that your server ran out of memory, etc though by looking in the QoS alerts inside of your PowerPanel.

Basically we'll help in most any way that we can, but we're not proactive in monitoring a server. There might be a time you take the server offline because you're restoring a backup, or someone running a single site on a VPS that needs it offline for a while... if we tried to monitor this and restart it, we would not be helping the client too much. In addition, the amount of resources it would take staff wise to check every single false positive report, etc would be quite large. We cannot afford to do this for $44.50 a month. :)

On another note however... we'll soon be announcing a deal where you can get a free remote test of your server every 10 minutes though a good monitoring company. They'll e-mail or SMS you whenever a service fails so you can check it or contact us if you can't bring the service online.

Hope that helps!

[sewmyheadon]

On another note however... we'll soon be announcing a deal where you can get a free remote test of your server every 10 minutes though a good monitoring company. They'll e-mail or SMS you whenever a service fails so you can check it or contact us if you can't bring the service online.

Hope that helps!

Hmm <rubbing fingertips together> Exxxxcelllllent!. . . - looking forward to the announcement.

[ispsg]

Many of the panels have they're own self-monitoring system in place that checks for failed services,

So I can preset from the VPS Powerpanel to self-monitor and self-initiate some reboot, kill scripts or standard remedy actions automatically?

May be a stupid question to ask, but I really don't know. Thank you for your reply.

[Fred]

Excellent news this is :)

Now, we need off-server backup space... and backup mx... :D

[charles]

So I can preset from the VPS Powerpanel to self-monitor and self-initiate some reboot, kill scripts or standard remedy actions automatically?

May be a stupid question to ask, but I really don't know. Thank you for your reply.

SIM will kill scripts it thinks are run-away or otherwise using to many resources. Nothing I am aware of would reboot it, nor would I want them to.

charles

[charles]

Excellent news this is :)

Now, we need off-server backup space... and backup mx... :D

I've shared my personal views on backup mx before, and we dont have any short term plans to offer it.

We are considering offering some backup alternatives. Instead of our current backups we are thinking of adding an alternate option (your choice) which would be offsite backup space via ftp that you can do your account backups with, and then a single weekly full backup of your vps. You would need to choose one scheme or the other.

comments?

charles

[Fred]

This seems pretty fair to me... I've seen the same "scheme" with another provider and it worked good.

My choice would be offsite backup to ftp... But only if bw isn't calculated... !?
In this case, i'll do daily(well, nightly!) backup of /home... probably one tar.gz per account.( so we can send it to user if needed ) + mysql dump per account too.

It's even possible to do a php script hosted on the vps to let the hosted users get their compressed files if needed...

[charles]

Yes, avoiding the bandwidth usage between the backup server in the bandwidth calculations is one of the issues with this scheme. Were looking into our options.

charles