Feature Request - Allow cpanel user to see active processes for their user

[sahostking]

Hello,

We frequently receive complaints fr om customers that their cpanel account has exceeded their CPU lim it or process lim it. We try to explain how it works, but the customer usually cant believe their account could possibly be consuming so much CPU power or number of processes.

We currently have no ability to "prove" to the customer they are indeed using too much CPU or processes.

So, it would be very nice if CloudLinux had the ability to "Show currently running processes" within their cpanel interface.

I know bluehost has this ability, because there is a "Show processes" link in the cpanel statistics area. It shows a listing of all running processes owned by the cpanel user, and is very helpful to see what the account is doing.

SUMMARY:

Please add a "Show Current Processes" link in the cpanel, so customers can see what is running and consuming their CPU and number of processes.

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ps -U cpaneluser -u cpaneluser --format pid,vsz,pcpu,start_time,etime,time,cmd
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Thanks!

[sqh]

I like the idea, but wouldn it be "too late" at this point? In other words, by the time the customer realizes their account has hit a "fault", and they log into cPanel, often whatever was causing the burst of activity has subsided. Still, it is a nice idea and I would support this.

FYI, for now, we provide the customer, upon request, the graphs in WHM > LVE Manager > Settings. You can choose any account, choose a Time Frame, and click on History, then "Show Chart for Selected Period"

Perhaps even offering the customer the ability to generate these graphs themselves would be a nice idea?

- Scott

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58440730/cPanel/CloudLinux.png

[henri]

While these graphs would be helpful... they still do not give any details or specifics about what actual programs/processes are using their CPU, etc.

I understand its not possible to go back in time to see what caused a fault previously. (At least, not without recording a lot of data, which is not practical...)

What I am suggesting here is a real-time display of current processss. So perhaps the cpanel "show processes" page refreshes itself every 3 or 5 seconds or so. This way, the customer can see in real-time what are the current running processes,and begin to have an idea of what their account is actually doing on the server.

Usually, the customer who is complaining has been frequently limited due to CPU or number of processes. So it is not a problem if we tell them this is a real-time "at the moment" display, and that it does not show historical data. They can sit there and refresh the page and watch things to see how they look.

It would certainly be better than nothing, as then they can at least see that we actually do monitor their cpu and process usage and are just just making things up.

[sqh]

Good points -- I support this!

- Scott

[henri]

Heres a quick example to show what I have in mind. This is very very simple, but should illustrate what might be helpful for the cpanel user to see.

1. Login to your server and go to the "/usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/x3" directory.

2. Create a new file called "processes.php".

3. Add the following code into the new file and save it:

$user = exec(whoami);

echo "Showing all

currently running

processes for the

". $user . "

user.";

?>

$cmd = "ps -U ".$user." -u ".$user." --format pid,vsz,pmem,pcpu,start_time,etime,cmd";

$processes = system($cmd);

echo $processes;

?>

4. Now run this file in the cpanel for the user, like this:

[URL]http://yourserver.com:2082/frontend/x3/processes.php[/URL]

I hope we can see something like this linked directly from the cpanel stats area, and also within the Resource Usage page.   :)

[ryan]

Nice work Host Provider!

Would be great to include this to help clients troubleshoot but would be great to clean it up a little so it doesn show full paths and cPanel processes, but excellent first start!

[sales]

You could enable ssh access than they can login and use TOP to see the processes?

[henri]

> You could enable ssh access than they can login and use TOP to see the processes?

This isnt a good solution for non-technical users. They wont understand how to run ssh, enter command-line commands, etc. It would be overwhelming for them.

What is needed is a simple button they can push in the control panel to show active processes. Of course, most of the output will be difficult for them to understand, but at least then they can see the name of the PHP files being run... so at least we can "prove" quickly that yes.. their account is actually doing something.

(The most common question/problem I am trying to solve with this feature request is when the non-technical customer complains that it isnt possible their account could be using up their CPU limit. So the idea is that with this feature, we can "prove" they actually are running 50 processes of "/wordpress/plugin/gone/crazy.php".)

Thanks.

[iseletsk]

I would recommend moving feature requests to cloudlinux.uservoice.com