Knowledge Base

About mPanel Memory Graph

mPanel (MammothVPS's customer control panel) records performance statistics about each VPS (including CPU and network activity) and plots them in graph form to provide customers with insight into the performance of their VPS over time.

In order for VPS memory usage/utilisation information to be recorded, each individual VPS being monitored must have the mPanel Memory Graph application installed.

The application is a light weight service on Windows VPSs, and a scheduled cron job on Linux VPSs.

Install mPanel Memory Graph

The mPanel Memory Graph application must be installed on your VPS (not on your personal computer) in order to periodically provide mPanel with your VPS's current memory usage information.

You may check to see whether the mPanel Memory Graph service is already installed by visiting the Performance Statistics page for your VPS and checking whether Memory Usage information has been made available.

Windows

1. Login to your VPS using Remote Desktop or the Rescue Console
2. Windows 2003 VPS customers must ensure the .Net 2.0 Framework is installed on their VPS before installing mPanel Memory Graph.
   
   You can download and install the .Net 2.0 Framework from Microsoft's website.
3. Download mPanelMemoryGraph.msi using Internet Explorer (or any other web browser) and save the file to your desktop
4. Open the mPanelMemoryGraph.msi installation file you saved to your Desktop
5. Click Next and Finish until you complete the setup wizard
6. You may now delete the downloaded install file

A new Windows service named mPanel Memory Graph is now installed and running.

Troubleshooting Windows Installation

Windows 2003 VPS customers (or VPS's without .Net Framework 2.0 or later installed) may encounter an error during the installation:

You will need to first download and install the .Net 2.0 Framework from Microsoft's website, and then click on Retry or re-run the installation process.

Linux

1. Login to your VPS using SSH or the Rescue Console
2. Ensure the Python scripting language is installed.
   You can use yum or apt-get to automatically install Python depending on your Linux distribution.
   
   If you're unsure which package update system you have installed, just try one before the other.
   
   Using yum:

   sudo yum update
   sudo yum install python
   

   Using apt-get:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install python
   

   Follow any on screen instructions (such as answering Yes to downloading the required files) to install Python.
   
   
3. Download the application archive:

   wget http://content.MammothVPS.com.au/media/5131/mpanel-memory-graph.tar.gz
   

4. Install the downloaded archive:

   sudo tar xfv mpanel-memory-graph.tar.gz -C /
   

5. The application has been installed into the necessary directories.
6. You may now remove the downloaded installation files:

   rm mpanel-memory-graph.tar.gz
   

A scheduled task has now been created that will periodically execute the mpanel-memory-graph application and update memory statistics.

View Memory Usage Information

Upon installing the mPanel Memory Graph application, you will then be able to view the Memory Usage of your VPS from the Performance Statistics section of mPanel.

A new Memory Usage plot will appear on the Overview performance graph.

You may need to wait up to 15 minutes for Memory Usage information to appear.

Security / Technical Information

The mPanel Memory Graph application is designed to serve one purpose only: to send the current system memory usage information to mPanel so that it may be display on customer VPS performance graphs.

The application sends a single UDP packet on port 21000 every few minutes to an mPanel server.

The application does not listen on, accept connections from, or bind to any ports.

Instead, the application is 'send only' and only ever transmits a UDP packet with a single value indicating the current system memory usage.

The application is optional, and may be removed if desired.

Uninstall mPanel Memory Graph

You may remove the mPanel Memory Graph application at any time, however you will no longer have memory utilisation information appearing in your performance graphs.

Windows

1. Access the Start Menu and then click on Add/Remove Programs
2. Find and remove the mPanel Memory Graph application

Linux

1. Issue the following commands from the SSH console:

2. sudo rm /etc/cron.d/mpanel-memory-graph
   sudo rm /usr/local/bin/mpanel-memory-graph