What software/program/service to monitor the status of my VPS?

Hi,

What software/program/service can I use to monitor the status of my VPS and notify me when it is down/crashed/not-running?

Interesting idea. Set up something like alert sending software, but what will sent it, when your VPS will be down? Another option, your VPS provider can have such feature.

I don't recommend relying on any vps provider to alert you to any down time of the VPS. Not because of any flagrant dishonesty, but because of point of view...let me explain:

A VPS provider will monitor the VPS from their own network. But what if their network is up, but Internet circuits are down? The VPS provider will not be able to see this from their point of view.

Google 'free website monitor', there are a bunch of them. Set it up to monitor your VPS. This will result in a monitor from off the VPS provider network, which is the best way do to do.

We use HyperSpin.com to monitor uptime of all three of our datacenters (100% ). I believe they have a free version that will work just fine. set it up as if your VPS is a router, so it will keep pinging it.

Thanks for the advice.

What if I want to check if my VPS did a restart?

How should I go about setting a check on it?

What program should I run, so that when the VPS restarts, the program would no longer be running on it, and then the check that pings the program would register an alert?

you should consider any down time from the third-party monitor service as a reboot (if not totally down) until you verify otherwise. that is your test... the monitor service will send you an email if they detect any failed ping replies. Send that to your email or the email box associated with your phone. Most mobile proivders have an email->SMS gateway. For example, with Verizon you can send to [email protected] and the message will arrive as a SMS.

you can confirm a reboot after you login to the VPS by checking how long the system has been up. from a command prompt (in the vps) type systeminfo

you will get a long output. scroll to the top and you'll see something like (I just ran it on my own):

Host Name: BARRY
OS Name: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
OS Version: 6.1.7600 N/A Build 7600
OS Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration: Member Server
OS Build Type: Multiprocessor Free
Registered Owner: Windows User
Registered Organization:
Product ID: 00xxx-001-000xxxx-xxxxx
Original Install Date: 9/29/2009, 11:56:11 PM
System Boot Time: 3/10/2011, 10:09:17 AM <---- check this
System Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation
System Model: Virtual Machine

the part I marked to check is the time the system booted last. If you want to check a longer history then open the server manager and look in the system event logs.

I *think* most VPS providers include software to automatically start your program(s) after a reboot. Our's is called "Autoboot". I'm sure there are other programs somewhat like it around. They are not all the same. Most are limited to just starting the programs after a reboot. Ours, and maybe others, will have many more features like monitoring the health of the applications, the trading logs themselves, and sending individual alerts, etc..

Autoboot is important not just for a system crash....hopefully you will install windows updates regularily. some traders have the VM configured to install updates automatically on weekends and reboot (if required). This way the VM is kept up to date and the programs keep running...

I'm actually trying to find a solution myself. Monitoring the uptime of your vps is only so good. What happens if your MT4 locks up? There is no way of knowing this. An indicator which emails at defined intervals will show that the vps is up, networking is up, and most importantly, MT4 is up. Does anyone know if such an indicator exists? I imagine it would be a simple thing to make if not.

Our Autoboot v3, which is included in all Trader's VPS subscriptions, monitors not only your MT4 for lockups, but it also monitors trading logs for key words like 'trade context busy' and can email you, restart the terminal etc. Additionally, it will monitor the overall system for things like CPU racing or low RAM, etc.. And of course, like the previous versions, it will also restart MT4 after a reboot.

docs for autoboot 3 are here:

http://helpdesk.commercialnetworkser...loaditemid=117

http://www.site24x7.com - FREE 1 hour Monitors - <60 minutes $1 per months. Plus pretty status graphs. - Below is my http://www.forexvps.com graph from 2010 generated by the Free + couple one dollar 30 min monitor months (I added the WEEKEND comment) - Their service sends emails when the VPS goes down and also when it comes back up. The service has a lot of monitor types. If you sign up and cant connect to your VPS IP just fire a email to tech support and they'll open a port if needed. (I was shocked when they did this for the Free version)

And I wanted to know how if it is possible to measure the bandwidth (i.e. data transfer per month)? the vps service gives something like 1000 gb/mn. Is it sufficient? how much bandwidth does one MT4 application running 24x7 (say including on weekends) need? Can someone please suggest?

If the vps really gives you 1000Gb per month I dont think you will get anywhere near that with just trading activities. Maybe 10-20 Gb only