Monitor a server

Every connected server pushes live metrics to the dashboard over its WebSocket link, so monitoring works without any extra setup. Open a server from your list and the Monitoring view shows what’s happening right now, plus the controls to act on it. Monitoring is available on all plans.

Metrics & top processes

The agent sends a heartbeat every 10 seconds carrying CPU, RAM and disk usage. The gauges in the dashboard track those values live — there’s nothing to install or scrape.

• CPU / RAM / disk — current usage gauges, updated on each heartbeat.
• Top processes — the heaviest processes by CPU and memory, so you can spot a runaway worker or a stuck job at a glance.

Tip

The live disk gauge is driven by the heartbeat. For a full breakdown of what is filling the disk, use the Storage scan below.

Services (systemd)

The Services panel lists the systemd units that matter for a web server — Nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB, Redis and friends — with their current state. From here you can start, stop or restart a service. The action runs on the box and the list refreshes to show the new state; no need to SSH in.

Caution

Stopping a core service (for example Nginx or MariaDB) will take sites offline until it’s started again. Restart is usually what you want.

OS updates

The OS updates view surfaces pending apt packages and security updates for the server, so “X security CVEs pending” becomes “patched”.

• Pending list — packages with upgrades available, with security updates called out separately.
• Apply — update everything, security-only, or a selection. Updates run as a streaming job: you see the live apt log as it happens, and the list refreshes when it’s done.
• Check for updates — refreshes the package index, then re-reads the pending list, so “last checked” reflects a real network check.
• Auto-updates — choose a policy (off / security-only / all) and, optionally, an automatic-reboot time for updates that need a reboot.
• History — recent update runs, read straight from the server’s apt history log.

Caution

apt has no rollback. Security-only is the safe default; “Update all” can pull in kernel and libc changes that require a reboot. Consider a backup before a large upgrade.

When an update needs a reboot, the dashboard shows a Reboot required banner. Triggering a reboot drops the agent’s connection briefly; the server comes back online on its own and the banner clears on the next update check.

Storage scan

A storage scan walks the disk to break down usage by mount and by largest paths. That walk is heavy on a full disk, so MZPanel runs it on its own schedule and the page is cache-first: it shows the last known result with a “scanned X minutes ago” indicator instead of rescanning every time you open it.

• Opening the page shows cached numbers instantly; if the snapshot is stale a fresh scan runs quietly in the background and the figures update when it lands.
• Rescan forces a fresh scan on demand.
• Composition and largest-paths render from cache even while the agent is briefly offline.

The agent’s scheduler runs the storage scan on a relaxed cadence (roughly every 30 minutes) so it never competes with the lightweight heartbeat — the live disk gauge in Metrics stays current regardless.