# Notifications and resource alerts

> What the panel bell tells you, how to pick what reaches you by email, and alert rules for CPU, memory, transfer and downtime.

Source: https://vpsnine.com/help/notifications-and-alerts · Updated: 2026-10-21

The bell at the top of the panel collects what happened on your account: a server is ready or suspended, an action or a snapshot failed, an invoice was issued, paid or is overdue, a payment or credit arrived, our team replied to a ticket, an alert fired, or your account was signed in to from a new browser or a new address. The number on it is how many you haven't read.

Click the bell for the newest few, or open [my.vpsnine.com/notifications](https://my.vpsnine.com/notifications) for all of them. Opening one marks it read and takes you to the server, invoice or ticket it is about. Notifications are kept for 90 days, 500 at most.

## Choose what reaches you

[Notification settings](https://my.vpsnine.com/account/notifications) has a row per kind of notice (servers, billing, support, resource alerts, security and webhooks), each with **in the panel** and **by email**. Security notices and billing email always go out. [Choose which notifications and emails you get](https://vpsnine.com/help/notification-settings) walks through it, with status page emails.

To send the same events to your own systems, use [webhooks](https://vpsnine.com/help/webhooks). To get them in Slack, Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, ntfy or another inbox, add a [notification channel](https://vpsnine.com/help/notification-channels); for a push notification on your computer or phone, [turn on push](https://vpsnine.com/help/install-the-panel-and-push-notifications).

## Set an alert rule

1. Open the server in the panel and choose the **Alerts** tab.
2. Under **Add a rule**, pick what to **Watch** (the table below).
3. Set **Above (%)** and **For at least** (5 to 60 minutes). Server down only uses the time; monthly transfer only the percentage.
4. Leave **Email me too** ticked to get an email as well as the panel notice and any [webhooks](https://vpsnine.com/help/webhooks).
5. Press **add rule**.

[Screenshot: The Add a rule form on the Alerts tab: Watch with CPU usage picked, then memory usage, monthly transfer and server down, Above 90 percent, For at least 10 minutes, Email me too ticked, and the add rule button] A rule for CPU above 90% for 10 minutes. Each choice says what it measures.

| Watch | Fires when |
|---|---|
| CPU usage | Above the percentage for the time you pick (5 to 60 minutes). 100% is every vCPU busy. |
| Memory usage | Above the percentage for the time you pick. |
| Monthly transfer | This calendar month's traffic, in and out, passes the percentage of your allowance (plan plus transfer packs). |
| Server down | The host hasn't reported the server, or it used no CPU at all, for the time you pick. |

A server can have 10 rules. Each rule can email you as well as show in the panel, and you can pause, resume or delete it at any time.

**Check it worked:** the rule shows in **Alert rules** at the top of the tab, and the server overview's **Alerts** card counts it. When a rule fires, its status says **firing** with the time, and the card says how many are firing:

[Screenshot: The Alert rules table with three rules: not responding for 5 minutes, firing; memory usage above 85% for 15 minutes, ok; and CPU usage above 90% for 10 minutes, firing and highlighted, each with pause, panel only and delete buttons] Firing rules show when they last fired. A rule goes back to ok by itself when the value drops back; panel only stops its emails.

## How alerts behave

Rules are checked every minute against the usage the host reports every 5 minutes, the same figures as the server's graphs. You get one notice when a rule fires and one when it clears, nothing in between. After a rule clears it stays quiet for 30 minutes, so a value hovering around the line can't flood you.

Some details worth knowing:

- **Memory** is the memory the server holds on the host. Linux keeps spare memory as cache, so a busy server often reads 80% or more without any trouble. Start with a high threshold.
- **Server down** only counts while the server should be running. Stopping it in the panel, a reboot or reinstall in progress, or a suspension never triggers it, and an alert in progress ends quietly when you stop the server.
- **Monthly transfer** clears quietly when a new month starts.
- **Disk space** isn't offered: the host sees disk reads and writes, not how full the filesystem is. Watch it from inside the server; [Monitor your server](https://vpsnine.com/help/monitor-your-server) shows how.

Alerts watch the server from the outside. For a website that must answer, add an uptime check from somewhere else too.

## Related

- [Webhooks and verifying their signatures](https://vpsnine.com/help/webhooks)
- [Choose which notifications and emails you get](https://vpsnine.com/help/notification-settings)
- [Check your account in the security center](https://vpsnine.com/help/security-center)
- [Rescue mode](https://vpsnine.com/help/rescue-mode)
- [Snapshots](https://vpsnine.com/help/snapshots)
- [Service status, incidents and maintenance](https://vpsnine.com/help/service-status)