> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rafftechnologies.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Monitoring & metrics > How Raff measures VM health, what each graph means, and where to read live state Updated May 8, 2026 A running VM emits a continuous stream of operational signals — CPU, memory, network, disk, and aggregate data transfer. Raff collects these from the **hypervisor**, not from inside the guest OS, so there's no agent to install and metrics work the same way regardless of distro, kernel, or whether the OS is even healthy. Hypervisor-level metrics treat the VM as a black box: they tell you how loaded the VM is, but not why. Pair them with in-VM tools (`top`, `htop`, your APM) for the full picture. ## What's tracked | Metric | Granularity | What it answers | | ----------------------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | | **Total Data Transfer** | Cumulative outbound to internet | "How much egress is this VM generating?" | | **CPU Usage** | Average % over time | "Is this VM CPU-bound? Do I need to resize?" | | **Memory Usage** | Used vs Free in MB | "Memory leak? OOM kill? Memory pressure?" | | **Network Traffic** | RX/TX KB/s per interface | "Is traffic actually reaching the right NIC?" | | **Disk Throughput** | Read/Write KB/s on boot disk | "Is the workload disk-bound?" | All five share a single time-range selector and update on a regular interval. ## Where to find it Open the VM detail page either way: * **Click the row** anywhere in the Instances list, or * Open the row's **⋮** menu and pick **View Details** The detail page opens on the **Graphs** tab by default. VM detail page on the Graphs tab with the VM Information side panel and time-range selector The time-range selector at the top of the tab applies to every chart at once: **30m / 1h / 2h / 6h / 24h / 7d / 1m / All**. Pick a wider range for trend analysis, narrower for live troubleshooting. The **Refresh** button forces an immediate re-fetch; otherwise charts auto-refresh. ## Reading each graph ### Total Data Transfer Cumulative outbound bytes from the VM to the public internet for the selected window. Outbound bandwidth is **unlimited and free** on every plan — this graph is for visibility, not billing. Useful for: * Catching unexpected egress (compromised host, runaway loop, data leak) * Sizing CDN offload for static assets * Capacity-planning across regions Inbound traffic isn't counted here; private VPC traffic between your own VMs is also excluded. ### CPU Usage Average CPU utilization (%) across all vCPUs over time. The dashed red line at **80%** is a soft threshold — sustained CPU above it means the VM is becoming a bottleneck. **Raff does not throttle your VM.** The 80% line is a visual reference, not a cap. As long as your usage is legitimate, you are free to run at 100% across all vCPUs for as long as you need — no CPU credits, no burst quotas, no automatic slowdown. What the shape tells you: * **Single spikes** — normal: a deploy, a backup, a cron job * **Sustained 80%+** — undersized; resize up, optimize, or split workload * **Saw-tooth** — periodic load: a scheduler running every N minutes * **Stuck at 100%** — a runaway process; SSH in and check `top` ### Memory Usage Used and Free memory in MB, summing to the VM's total RAM. Memory Usage graph showing Used (red) and Free (green) MB stacked over time, with a sharp drop indicating an OOM event or restart What to watch for: * **Used trending up over hours** — memory leak; check long-running services * **Sharp drop in Used** — OOM kill, service restart, or VM reboot * **Used near total** — paging or swap pressure; resize up Note: "Used" includes the OS page cache, which Linux happily fills. Treat it as a load indicator, not a panic signal. ### Network Traffic RX (receive) and TX (transmit) per network interface, in KB/s. Each interface is numbered (`0`, `1`, …). Typically `0` is the public NIC and `1` is the VPC NIC, but labelling depends on attachment order — verify on the **Network** tab. Network Traffic graph with RX and TX series for two interfaces over time Use it to: * Confirm an app is actually receiving traffic (RX > 0 on the right interface) * Catch traffic on the wrong NIC (e.g. internal calls hitting the public IP) * Detect DDoS, scraping, or bandwidth abuse (sudden sustained RX spike) * Verify private-network setups (RX/TX on the VPC interface) ### Disk Throughput Read and Write in KB/s on the **boot disk** (attached volumes have their own metrics). Disk Throughput graph with Read and Write KB/s over time, showing a single read spike during a one-off load What to watch for: * **Sustained writes** — background jobs, log churn, or a database flushing * **Sustained reads** — cache misses; consider more RAM or a read replica * **Periodic spikes** — backups, cron jobs, snapshot windows ## VM Information side panel The left side panel on the detail page is a **live summary** of the VM — useful even when you're not looking at graphs. It collapses with the chevron when you want more room for charts. | Section | What it shows | | ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Pricing** | Plan, monthly price, status, next billing date, current billing period | | **Credentials** | Username (e.g. `root`), Send Password to Email | | **Resources** | vCPU, memory, storage, total storage | | **Network** | Public IPv4, IPv6 (if enabled), private IPv4 in the VPC | | **Storage & Volumes** | Boot disk size, count of attached volumes | | **Backups & Snapshots** | Counts of each | Click an arrow on a section header to jump to the related management page (Resources → Resize, Storage → Volumes, etc.). ## What hypervisor metrics can't tell you Because the data comes from outside the guest, the dashboard can't see: | You won't see here | Use instead (inside the VM) | | --------------------------- | -------------------------------- | | Per-process CPU / RAM | `top`, `htop`, `pidstat` | | Per-mount disk usage | `df`, `du` | | Per-connection network | `ss`, `iftop`, `tcpdump` | | Application latency, errors | Prometheus / OpenTelemetry / APM | | HTTP request rates | Web-server logs, APM | For production observability, run an in-VM agent and ship to your own monitoring stack (Prometheus + Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, etc.). Raff's graphs are best used as a **first-glance** signal: is the VM alive, is it loaded, is it transferring data — then dig deeper with in-VM tools. ## Retention and refresh * **Time range** — up to **All** (since VM creation). Older windows are aggregated; recent windows show finer-grained samples. * **Refresh** — charts update on a regular interval. The **Refresh** button forces an immediate refetch. * **Export** — not available in the dashboard today; for long-term retention or alerting, scrape from inside the VM or use an external monitoring stack. ## Related What CPU, RAM, and storage a plan includes. When metrics tell you the VM is undersized.