WHM for root users

Most of our VPS packages are fully managed, but there are some features that will help the users to manage their VPS directly, to have full feedback and immediate result. WHM/cPanel control panel makes the management of your VPS easy. Below are the features that might come in handy for root users.

System Health

This section of WHM lets you view data about your server’s usage, as well as processes running on the server.

Process Manager

Main > System Health > Process Manager

This feature displays the processes running on your VPS in a table over 6 columns.

WHM – running processes

The following columns are displayed:

• Pid

The process identity. This is a unique number that is assigned to any process running on your server.

You may click the process ID number to access 2 options: you may trace or kill the selected process.

Tracing a process allows you to observe and control the process as it executes. Killing a process forcefully terminates it. This may be necessary, if for example, the process is being exploited or is consuming too many resources.

• Owner

The user or system account that started and owns the corresponding process.

• Priority

This is a number between -20 and 20 which tells how much time the system spends working on the process. -20 is the least CPU intensive, while 20 is the most.

• Cpu%

The percentage of your server’s processing power that the process is using.

• Mem%

The percentage of RAM (memory) that the process is using on your server.

• Command

Specifies the directory from which the CPU is receiving instructions.

Disk Usage

Main > System Health > Show Current Disk Usage

This feature displays information about how your server’s hard drive is being used.

WHM – HDD status

This table shows how information is stored on your VPS. The information is distributed across 6 columns.

• Device

The partition or hard disk to which the other information pertains.

• Size

The total size of the partition or hard disk.

• Used

The amount of information that is taken up on the partition or hard disk.

• Available

The amount of free space available on the partition or hard disk.

• Percent Used

The percentage of the partition or hard disk that is currently filled.

• Mount Point

The location of the the partition or hard disk in the server’s directory structure.

Restart Services

Main > Restart Services

Using this feature, you can restart a service (usually a daemon) on your web server. Daemons are small processes that run in the background of your server.

Restarting may be helpful if you have changed a service’s configuration or if the service is experiencing problems.

On the main Restart Services screen, select the service you wish to restart.

Restart services in WHM

The three above-mentioned features are crucial for VPS management. They will allow you to take immediate action and effectively resolve the overload, slowdowns and other issues.

DNS Functions

Add an A Entry for your Hostname

An “A entry,” also known as an A record or an address record, consists of data that resides in your server’s DNS zone files. The A entry matches a hostname or domain name with an IP address. Having a correct A entry is essential for allowing other computers to find your server on the Internet.

Configure Backup

This feature allows you to configure the way your backup files are stored. You can configure automatic backups, backup retention schedules, and define where the backups should be stored (locally or remotely).

Main > Backup > Configure Backup

To configure automatic backups:

• Backup Status:
  • Enabled — Activates automatic backups.
  • Disabled — Deactivates automatic backups. However, you can still back up your data manually.
  • Restore Only — Disables backups but allows restorations.

• Backup Interval: Daily, Weekly, Monthly.

• Backup Retention — this option defines how long you wish to keep backups.

• Days to Run Backup- defines the days on which you would like to run backups.

• Remount/Unmount Backup Drive – selects whether to remount and unmount backup drives automatically.

This option requires a dedicated backup drive. If this option is enabled, WHM stores backup files to this drive when the backup runs. After the backup has finished, the drive will automatically unmount. For additional information about mounted backup drives, see the section below.

• Bail Out If Backup Mount Fails

Choose whether to halt or continue the backup process if the drive mount fails:

Enabled — The backup process quits if the drive mount fails.

Disabled — The backup process continues regardless of the mount’s status.

You should enable this feature if you are automatically mounting and unmounting a backup drive during the backup process.

• Incremental Backups

Incremental backups store only information and configurations that are new or have been changed.

Incremental backups are stored uncompressed and tend to take up a great deal of hard drive space in a short period of time. Please ensure that you have enough free hard drive space before you enable this option.

This option is recommended to conserve system resources; however, it is not compatible with FTP backups.

• Backup Accounts

This option is only recommended for systems that have the resources to store individual account information. A server that hosts many accounts may not have enough disk space left to store backups to the server. You may want to consider using a remote server or an additional hard drive.

• Compress Account Backups

When you enable this option, WHM will save backups as .tar.gz files. This conserves disk space but may take longer, slowing CPU performance. When you disable this option, WHM will save backups as .tar files. This conserves CPU overhead, but takes up more disk space.

• Backup Configuration Files – choose whether to automatically back up your configuration files for the Apache web server, FTP servers, and nameserver daemons.

Enabling this is not required for an account restoration.

• Backup SQL Databases – choose a method for backing up your MySQL databases:

Per Account Only — Makes backups of individual accounts’ MySQL databases.

Choose this option if you wish to restore individual account databases.

Entire MySQL Directory — Makes a backup of the entire MySQL database directory.

This option can only be used to restore the entire MySQL directory and all databases within that directory.

• Per Account and Entire MySQL Directory — makes a backup of the entire directory, plus additional backup copies of individual accounts.

• Backup Access Logs – choose whether you would like to back up access logs.

• Backup Type
  • Standard — stores backups on the server’s hard drive. When using this option, specify the directory in which to store the backup files, using the Backup Destination field below.
    Do not use the /home directory to store backups.
  • Remote FTP (Accounts Only) — allows you to back up specific accounts on an account-by-account basis to a remote FTP server.

When using FTP backups:

• Type the remote FTP host into the Remote FTP Host field. Enter a domain name such as example.com.

Remote FTP backups do not include system files, nor do they include the database directory. FTP backups do include the SQL dump.

• Enter the username into the FTP Backup User field.

• Enter the password into the appropriate field.

• Specify the directory in which to store backups in the FTP Backup Directory field.

• Choose whether to use FTP Backup Passive Mode. Use passive mode if you are behind a firewall or if FTP backups fail.

• Enter the location where you wish to store backups into Backup Destination field.

Do not use /home

1. Select user accounts for which you would like to create backups by clicking the Select button.

Use the checkboxes on the next screen to select the appropriate accounts.

Remember: Click Save to store the changes.

• Click Save to finish.

Daily process Log, Server Information and Service Status

Daily Process Log, Server Information and Service Status are features of Server Status in the WHM Home Screen.

Daily Process Log

Daily Process Log in the WHM Home screen was known before as CPU/Memory/MySQL Usage. This feature is responsible for telling you your server’s average consumption of processing power and memory on a daily basis. The information regarding this is divided into rows and columns for easier comprehension. On each row you will find the different processes running on your server while each column will tell you the processes’ associated parameters.

The information found on the columns are divided into 5 categories, namely:

• User: shows the name of the user running the process

• Domain: shows the domain name connected with your cPanel user accounts

•  %CPU: shows the daily percentage of the CPU’s processing power used by the corresponding process.

•  %MEM: shows the daily percentage of RAM used by the corresponding process

• MySQL Process: shows the number of MySQL processes related with the corresponding process

Server Information

The Server Information feature of WHM Home screen talks about your hardware configuration like the speed of your processor.

The Server Information is divided into 6 categories, namely:

• Processor Information: this talks about your processor including cache size, speed, vendor and type of processor

• Memory Information: this is about your server’s RAM consumption

• System Information: this information shows your operating system’s platform, server’s hostname, date and chipset.

• Physical Disks: this field provides information about your hard disks and CD/DVD-ROM drives

• Current Memory Usage: provides information regarding the amount of RAM currently used on your server

• Current Disk Usage: shows information on how much hard drive space you are using on your server

Service Status

This feature provides a list of services you have chosen to monitor. Here, you will see the information organized by the process as well as the status of the process (up, down or percentage of usage). In order to see whether a process is working normally, a green circle with check mark will be seen at the right while a problematic process has a flashing red circle. See sample below:

WHM – service status

This sample shows the PostgreSQL daemon is not working properly.

Reminder: For you to view a process, you need to enable it for monitoring in the Service Manager by clicking the correct corresponding checkbox.