How do I monitor server resources (CPU, RAM, disk)?

Monitoring your server's CPU, RAM and disk usage regularly lets you spot performance issues before they escalate and choose the right package size. You can track your resources in three different ways: graphically through the client area, from the command line on Linux servers, or with built-in tools on Windows servers.

1. Monitoring from the Client Area (Easiest Method)

Thanks to the monitoring add-on active in our client area, you can view your server's real-time and historical resource usage graphically; no need to connect to the server.

1. Sign in to your account at musteri.kolan.net.tr.
2. From the top menu, go to Services → My Services.
3. Click the VDS / dedicated server product you want to monitor.
4. On the opened service detail page, you can see CPU percentage, used RAM, disk free/used and network traffic graphs.

2. Command-Line Tools on Linux Server

After connecting via SSH, you can monitor resource usage in detail with the following commands.

CPU and general process list:

top

htop, a more readable alternative, is not installed on most distributions; install it on first use:

apt install htop      # Ubuntu / Debian
dnf install htop      # AlmaLinux / Rocky

Then run htop; the colored interface shows CPU/RAM bars and a process list. You can change the sort with F6 and kill a process with F9.

RAM usage:

free -h

The used column in the output shows actually used memory, and available shows memory that can be allocated to new applications (including cache).

Disk usage (by mount):

df -h

Size of a specific folder:

du -sh /var/www
du -sh /var/log/* | sort -h | tail -10

The second command shows the top 10 largest folders under /var/log; it's a quick answer to "what filled it up?"

Disk I/O tracking (per process):

iotop

Network traffic (per process):

nethogs

System load (load average) and uptime:

uptime

Shows the 1, 5 and 15-minute load averages in order. If you see load greater than your core count persistently, you have a CPU bottleneck.

Top 10 processes by memory:

ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -11

Visual disk analysis (folder tree):

ncdu /

If not installed, install with apt install ncdu or dnf install ncdu. Navigate with arrow keys and clearly see which folder takes how much space.

3. Built-in Tools on Windows Server

After connecting to your Windows server via RDP, there are three main tools:

Task Manager

Opens with Ctrl + Shift + Esc. The most practical tool for a general overview.

• Processes tab: CPU, Memory, Disk, Network columns per process.
• Performance tab: Graphical CPU, Memory, Disk, Ethernet usage.
• Users tab: Active RDP sessions and the resources they use.

Resource Monitor

For more detailed analysis, open it with Win + R → resmon. Shows CPU, Memory, Disk and Network usage per process with sub-details (which file is being I/O'd, which IP is receiving traffic).

Performance Monitor

Open with Win + R → perfmon. Used for long-term monitoring and log collection; with Data Collector Sets you can schedule custom counter recording.

Quick PowerShell queries:

# Top 10 CPU-consuming processes
Get-Process | Sort-Object CPU -Descending | Select-Object -First 10

# Top 10 RAM-consuming processes
Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet64 -Descending | Select-Object -First 10

# Disk usage status
Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem

4. When You Detect High Usage

• If CPU is persistently 90%+: Identify the top-consuming process (Linux top / Windows Task Manager). High web server (Apache, Nginx, IIS) means increased traffic; high PHP-FPM might be a loop or heavy query in your application.
• If RAM is full: Swap usage increases on Linux and the system slows down significantly. Check swap status with free -h. MySQL innodb_buffer_pool_size is the most common root cause of memory pressure.
• If disk is full: Find the largest folders with ncdu or du; log files, old backups and temporary files are usually the culprits.
• If disk I/O is high: Missing database indexes or overlapping backup/log operations may be the cause; identify the source with iotop.

If you spot a peak or resource-consuming process you can't make sense of, you can share a screenshot via support ticket; our team will inspect and guide you.