Server Pulse

Real-time server and WordPress health monitoring for any host. Automatically detects the environment and pulls metrics from the best available source: the native operating system, cPanel, the WP Engine Hosting Platform API, or WordPress itself.

Why this plugin exists

Most "server monitor" plugins assume they can read CPU and RAM from PHP. On managed hosts like WP Engine that is impossible: your site runs in a container on a shared cluster and the kernel never exposes host resources. Server Pulse is honest about this. It shows the real account-level data WP Engine does expose (storage, visits, bandwidth, plan limits) and marks CPU/RAM as unavailable instead of inventing numbers. On a VPS or dedicated server the Native provider reads the real system metrics.

Providers

Provider	Metrics	Requirements
Native	CPU load, RAM, disk, uptime, top processes, network	Linux/VPS/dedicated. Shell access optional.
cPanel	Account disk, bandwidth, CloudLinux LVE CPU/RAM when present	cPanel host, user and API token.
WP Engine	Storage (files + DB), visits, requests, bandwidth, plan limits	WP Engine API user ID + password (account Owner required).
WordPress	DB size, autoloaded options, revisions, transients, cron, object cache, versions	Always available.

The collector merges all providers into one summary using a per-metric priority, so disk comes from WP Engine on WPE, while CPU/RAM come from the native system on a VPS.

Features

• Live dashboard with auto refresh, health score and grade.
• Historical charts (24h / 7d / 30d) persisted in {prefix}sp_samples.
• Alert engine with thresholds, trends, capacity projections, de-duplication, cooldowns and a daily cap; email plus Pro webhook/Slack/Discord/Telegram channels.
• Diagnostics advisor with read-only checks and one-click safe fixes, plus hosting environment detection (managed hosts, control panels and cloud platforms).
• Crash sentinel that detects plugin activations that killed PHP (502 / OOM / timeout), offers one-click rollback and can install an optional mu-plugin early loader.
• Local storage scan for hosts without a hosting API: walks wp-content and breaks down uploads, plugins, themes, mu-plugins and other, daily via cron and on demand.
• Traffic & logs (Pro): parses WP Engine / Apache access and error logs into 5xx/504 spike analysis, abusive IPs and empty-User-Agent bots, missing-asset 404 hot spots, heavy endpoints and recurring PHP errors, with copy-paste edge rules and a downloadable report.
• Step-by-step provider diagnostics for WP Engine and cPanel connections.
• Credentials encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM and a per-install secret (legacy formats still decrypt).
• REST API (/wp-json/server-pulse/v1/snapshot, /history) guarded by manage_options.
• No phone-home. No CDN assets. Charts are hand-rolled SVG.

Installation

1. Copy the folder into wp-content/plugins/ (the folder should be named server-pulse).
2. Activate Server Pulse.
3. Open Tools → Server Pulse.
4. Configure providers under Tools → Server Pulse → Settings.

WP Engine setup

WP Engine only exposes its Hosting Platform API when API access is enabled for the account by an account Owner. Generating credentials for a user whose account has API access disabled results in HTTP 200 with an empty account list, and the plugin cannot read anything.

1. Log in to my.wpengine.com as the account Owner.
2. Go to Users → API Access (my.wpengine.com/profile/api_access).
3. Turn API access ON for the account (toggle next to the account name).
4. Click Generate Credentials and copy the API User ID and API Password.
5. Paste them in Tools → Server Pulse → Settings → WP Engine and save.
6. Open the dashboard and click Test connection to see the full diagnostic.

If /accounts returns count: 0 with valid credentials, the account's API access is off or the user lacks account access — contact WP Engine support for an ownership change.

cPanel setup

1. In cPanel, open Security → Manage API Tokens and create a token.
2. Enter the host, username and token in Tools → Server Pulse → Settings → cPanel.
3. Save and test the connection.

Development

The codebase is a small provider pattern:

server-pulse.php                        Bootstrap + autoloader
includes/
  class-server-pulse-plugin.php         Main controller
  class-server-pulse-*.php              Settings, crypto, network, repository, health,
                                        collector, alerts, notifier, trends, advisor,
                                        maintenance, host detector, sentinel, loader,
                                        dashboard, admin, ajax, cron, rest, storage
                                        scanner, license, util
  providers/                            Native, cPanel, WP Engine, WordPress
  pro/                                  Pro modules (traffic & log analyzers, reports)
admin/views/                            Dashboard, settings, alerts, diagnostics and
                                        traffic screens
assets/                                 admin.css, charts.js, dashboard.js, settings.js,
                                        advisor.js, traffic.js
mu-plugin/                              Optional early crash loader template

Pro features are grouped under includes/pro/ so they can be moved into a separate extension later without touching the free plugin.

Every provider implements Server_Pulse_Provider_Interface and returns a normalized snapshot.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Author

Alexis Olivero · https://oliverodev.com/