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How to Monitor Your VPS With Netdata (2026)

Published May 4, 2026 · 5 min read · Galaxy Cloud Solutions

Netdata is a real-time monitoring tool that gives you live charts for everything happening on your server — CPU usage, RAM, disk I/O, network throughput, running processes, and hundreds of application-specific metrics if you have the right services installed. It is free, open-source, and the installation is one command. Here is how to set it up and what to actually pay attention to.

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Installing Netdata

curl -s https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh | bash -s -- --non-interactive --dont-wait --disable-telemetry

That is the entire installation. Netdata starts automatically and runs on port 19999.

Accessing the Dashboard

Netdata runs on port 19999. Since you should not expose this publicly, use an SSH tunnel to access it from your browser:

ssh -p YOUR_SSH_PORT -L 19999:localhost:19999 ubuntu@your-vps-ip

Then open http://localhost:19999 in your browser. You will see a live dashboard that updates every second.

What to Actually Look At

CPU

The system CPU chart shows usage broken down by user processes, system calls, I/O wait, and idle time. I/O wait consistently above 20% means your disk is a bottleneck. CPU usage consistently above 80% means you are running out of headroom and should either optimize your app or upgrade your plan.

RAM

Watch the used and cached RAM. Linux uses free RAM for disk cache which is normal and healthy — do not panic if your "used" RAM looks high. The number to watch is the swap usage. If you are regularly using swap, you need more RAM.

Disk I/O

The disk read/write chart shows how hard your storage is working. Consistent high write rates on a VPS can indicate a runaway process writing logs or a database under heavy load.

Network

The network chart shows inbound and outbound traffic per second. If you are running a web server or game server this is useful for understanding your traffic patterns and peak times.

Setting Up Alerts

Netdata has a built-in alert system. Configure email notifications:

sudo nano /etc/netdata/health_alarm_notify.conf

Find and set:

SEND_EMAIL="YES"
DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_EMAIL="[email protected]"
SENDMAIL="/usr/sbin/sendmail"

Netdata comes with hundreds of pre-configured alerts for common issues like high CPU, low disk space, and RAM exhaustion. They just need email configured to fire.

Keeping Netdata Secure

Do not expose port 19999 to the internet. Either use SSH tunneling as above, or if you want a permanent public dashboard, put it behind Nginx with authentication:

sudo apt install -y apache2-utils
sudo htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.netdata_auth youruser

location /netdata/ {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:19999/;
    auth_basic "Netdata";
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.netdata_auth;
}