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How to Monitor Your Game Server: Uptime, Performance, Alerts

Players do not wait. If a server goes down and you do not notice for four hours, most players have moved on. Here is how to know before they do.

What to monitor

Process up/down

The most basic check. A server that has crashed but left the port open can fool a simple ping. Watch for actual process exit.

Player count

A sustained drop to zero on a normally active server is often the first visible sign of a problem. Trend data over days shows whether population is growing or declining.

RAM usage

GMod and Rust servers can run out of memory during extended sessions. RAM climbing to your plan limit and staying there predicts a crash before it happens.

CPU usage

A single CPU core pegged at 100% causes tick rate drops and lag spikes before it causes an outright crash. Useful for diagnosing "the server feels laggy" complaints.

Network packet loss

Intermittent packet loss causes rubberbanding and connection drops without crashing the server process. Harder to track but relevant for player experience complaints.

Free monitoring tools

GameTracker (gametracker.com): tracks player count history, server uptime statistics, and map rotation. Works for GMod, Rust, Minecraft, and many other games. Free; add your server by IP and query port.

BattleMetrics (battlemetrics.com): specialises in Rust, GMod, Minecraft, ARK. Tracks individual player session history and population trends. Free tier covers basic monitoring; particularly detailed for Rust wipe population curves.

UptimeRobot (uptimerobot.com): generic uptime monitor that pings any IP:port on a schedule (every 5 minutes on the free tier). Alerts via email, SMS, or Discord webhook when the server stops responding. Not game-aware, but fast for "is it even reachable" checks. Free tier: up to 50 monitors.

Discord bots: several Discord bots (ServerStat, GameStat) connect to your server via the game's query protocol and post live player count and status to a channel. Some support role pings when the server goes offline.

Setting up Discord webhook alerts

Discord webhooks are one of the most practical alert channels because your community is already there. Via our panel:

  1. Go to your server's Settings tab and find the Notifications section.
  2. Paste a Discord webhook URL.
  3. Select which events trigger a notification: server start, server stop, crash, scheduled restart.

Via UptimeRobot: create a monitor for your server's IP:port, then add a Discord webhook as an alert contact. You will receive a Discord message within 5 minutes of the server going unreachable.

When monitoring is not enough

Some problems require human action regardless of how well you monitor:

  • Crash loops: the server restarts and crashes again immediately. Automated restart makes this worse. Read the console output and find the cause before re-enabling auto-restart.
  • Corrupted save files: the server comes back up but data is missing. You need to restore from a backup.
  • Network-level issues: if the problem is upstream (DDoS, datacenter routing), restarting the server process does nothing. Check /status first when your panel is unreachable.
  • Rogue admin abuse: monitoring tells you a crash happened; you need logs to find out who caused it.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get notified when my game server goes down?

The fastest options are Discord webhook alerts (available through our panel or UptimeRobot) and email alerts from UptimeRobot. Configure at minimum one alerting channel so you know within minutes, not hours, when a crash occurs.

Does my server restart automatically when it crashes?

On Zeros Host, automatic restart on crash is supported and can be enabled per server from your dashboard. The server process is monitored by Wings and restarted within seconds of an unexpected exit.

What is BattleMetrics and do I need it?

BattleMetrics is a third-party service that tracks player counts, server population history, and individual player sessions for games including Rust, GMod, and Minecraft. It is useful for understanding your server's population trends over time. Our panel covers RAM, CPU, and basic player count, but BattleMetrics gives deeper historical data.

What is the difference between a server being down and the panel being down?

Your game server and the control panel are separate systems. If your game server crashes, you can still access the panel to restart it. If the panel itself is unreachable, check the /status page. A panel issue is an infrastructure problem on our end.

How can I see what caused my server to crash?

Check the server console in your panel dashboard immediately after the crash. Look for error messages in the last 20-50 lines before the process exited. For GMod, Lua errors show file name and line number. For Rust, oxide/logs/ contains dated log files with detailed output.

See exactly what your server is doing

Every Zeros Host server includes CPU/RAM graphs, crash auto-restart, and Discord webhook alerts built into the panel. No third-party tools required for the basics.

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