---
title: "Monitor performance metrics"
description: "Open Metrics to inspect server CPU, memory, disk, and network charts over a selected period. Compare recent values and follow unusual changes to related alerts."
---

> Full documentation index: https://docs.alpacax.com/llms.txt

# Monitor performance metrics

## Monitoring dashboard

### How to access

1. Open **Metrics** from the workspace app
2. Click the server you want to look at
3. View real-time metric charts

### Monitoring metrics

Server charts (CPU, memory, disk, disk I/O, and network) and metric alert rules are part of the **Metrics extension**. Free plans can't enable it. Essentials and Enterprise workspaces can turn it on from **Workspace settings > Integrations > [Extensions](/use/workspace/settings/extensions/)**. A workspace that was already on a paid plan has it on; a newly created workspace starts with it off.

**With the extension on**, the dashboard charts:

- **CPU usage**: Overall CPU utilization
- **Memory usage**: System memory utilization
- **Disk usage**: Disk usage per partition
- **Disk I/O**: Read/write speeds per disk (Peak/AVG)
- **Network traffic**: Network usage per interface (bps/pps)

New data arrives about once a minute while the extension is on.

**With the extension off**, the charts and metric alerts say the extension isn't enabled—or that your plan can't enable it—instead of showing empty charts.

Every plan keeps two things regardless of the extension: [server online/offline status and the offline alert](/use/servers/monitor/#offline-alert), and the disk usage behind the core disk-usage alert—normally just the server's own volume, every volume if the agent doesn't identify one. The latest reading is on the server's **Overview** tab under **Agent information**, as **Volume usage**, on every plan and whether or not the extension is on. The same value is in the server's [collection profile](/reference/api/servers/servers/#collection-profile) for API callers.

From 2.37.0, the metrics overview reads every server's latest values through the [latest metrics endpoint](/reference/api/metrics/latest/), which any script or integration can call the same way.

### Server status banner

A server's detail page shows a status banner only while metric alerts are open on it. The banner shows one chip per open alert, titled in your language: red for a critical alert, yellow for a warning. When more alerts are open than fit, a last chip shows how many more there are. The banner hides again once every alert resolves.

The banner follows the alerts as they open and resolve, without waiting for the agent's next report. It doesn't report the connection: whether the server is online is shown separately, and a server going offline raises the [offline alert](/use/servers/monitor/#offline-alert) instead. With the Metrics extension off, only the core disk-usage alert counts. API callers read the same summary from the server's [`status`](/reference/api/servers/servers/#server-status) field.

### Network interfaces

From alpamon v2.7.3, upgrading the agent doesn't remove any interface from a server's interface list. What changes is the network traffic chart: container-style virtual interfaces—one half of a veth pair, a macvlan or ipvlan interface, a tun or tap device, and dummy interfaces—stop reporting traffic, so the chart no longer fills up with short-lived container interfaces. They stay in the interface list; only their chart goes empty. If that would leave a server with no interface reporting traffic at all, such as an agent running inside a container, the agent reports traffic for them anyway.

Loopback and interfaces with no hardware address, such as WireGuard, OpenVPN tun, or PPP links, were never shown and can't be added with the setting below.

To see traffic for a specific virtual interface again, add it to `include_virtual` under `[interface]` in the agent's configuration file, then restart the agent:

```ini
[interface]
include_virtual = veth0, cali*
```

To also drop those interfaces from the interface list, not just their chart, set `exclude_virtual_from_inventory = true` under `[interface]`—but only against an Alpacon server on 2.37.2 or later. On an older server, removing an interface this way deletes its traffic history along with it.

On macOS and Windows, the agent still decides which interfaces report traffic by name, as it always has.

## Viewing charts

Hover over the chart line to view detailed information in a tooltip.

### Select time range

Available time ranges vary by plan. See [Plans & billing](/use/workspace/plans-billing/) for what each plan unlocks.

Select time range from chart top:

- Last 1 hour
- Last 24 hours (1 day)
- Last 7 days (1 week)
- Last 1 month
- Last 3 months
- Last 1 year
- Custom range

A range is offered only when it fits inside what your plan keeps, so Essentials stops at the last month and Enterprise offers all of them.

### Refresh charts

You can set the refresh interval in **minutes** in the **Refresh** field.

Click the arrow icon button on the right to **refresh charts immediately**.

Source: https://docs.alpacax.com/use/metrics/