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UnderShield monitoring and infrastructure protection

UnderShield is UnderHost's protection and monitoring layer across hosting services, combining hardened infrastructure, network-level protection, privacy-conscious locations, encrypted access, and optional server health monitoring.

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UnderShield is UnderHost's protection and monitoring layer across our hosting network. It combines hardened infrastructure, network-level protection, privacy-conscious locations, encrypted access, and proactive monitoring across shared hosting, Cloud VPS, dedicated servers, and offshore services.

UnderShield™ Protection Across Our Network

UnderShield covers both infrastructure protection and server health visibility. The platform at shield.underhost.com focuses on eligible Cloud VPS and dedicated server monitoring, while UnderHost's wider protection approach includes network, privacy, and infrastructure safeguards.

UnderShield infrastructure protection

UnderShield infrastructure protection is the security and privacy foundation behind UnderHost services. Enterprise hardware, redundant network design, anti-DDoS mitigation, encrypted access, privacy-conscious service locations, and proactive monitoring help keep customer services stable, protected, and online.

These protections apply at different layers depending on the product. Shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers, and offshore services may receive network-level protection and infrastructure monitoring by default. The server-side UnderShield agent described below is a separate monitoring component for eligible VPS and dedicated servers.

UnderShield is optional

UnderShield is not mandatory. It is offered free with eligible UnderHost services and can be selected during checkout for Cloud VPS or dedicated servers where the option is available.

Is UnderShield mandatory?

No. UnderShield is an optional monitoring add-on. Your Cloud VPS or dedicated server can run without it, and it does not replace your normal server access, control panel, backups, or support options.

UnderHost offers it for free with eligible services because monitoring helps both you and our support team understand server health faster. If you do not want agent-based monitoring installed, you can simply choose not to opt in.

What UnderShield monitors

UnderShield is designed to give a clear operational view of a server. Depending on the server type and agent version, it can report information such as:

  • Server online/offline state and last check-in time
  • CPU load and system uptime
  • RAM and swap usage
  • Disk usage, disk partitions, and inode usage
  • Network traffic counters and bandwidth trends
  • Basic service status for common hosting services
  • Operating system and kernel information
  • Control panel detection, such as cPanel/WHM, DirectAdmin, CloudPanel, or aaPanel where applicable
  • Historical graphs and uptime reporting

The goal is not to control your server for you. The goal is to provide useful visibility so problems such as high disk usage, high memory pressure, service failures, or missing agent check-ins can be noticed earlier.

What is installed on the server

When UnderShield is enabled, an UnderHost monitoring agent is installed on the server. The agent is a lightweight script that collects server health data and sends it securely back to the UnderShield platform.

On Linux servers, the installer typically places:

  • A monitoring agent script at /usr/local/bin/underhost-agent
  • A protected configuration file at /etc/underhost-agent.conf
  • A systemd service and timer so the agent can report automatically

The configuration file contains the UnderShield ingest URL and an agent token. That token identifies the server to UnderShield and should be treated as sensitive.

UnderShield is monitoring, not server management

UnderShield does not mean UnderHost is automatically managing your operating system, websites, applications, updates, firewall rules, or custom software. Managed service work still depends on your service type and support scope.

How it helps UnderHost staff

UnderShield can help UnderHost staff see server issues before you notice them or before you open a ticket. For example, our team may be able to see that a server stopped reporting, disk usage is rising, memory is under pressure, or a monitored service appears unhealthy.

This visibility can make support faster because staff can look at recent server health data instead of starting from a blank report. It can help answer questions like:

  • Did the server stop responding recently?
  • Was the server under high load before the issue?
  • Is disk space close to full?
  • Did the monitoring agent stop checking in?
  • Are common hosting services reporting normally?

UnderShield does not require a separate server management plan just to provide monitoring visibility. However, deeper investigation, system administration, software repair, security cleanup, or configuration changes may still require the appropriate support or management service.

CustomerPanel integration

UnderHost plans to integrate UnderShield statistics into CustomerPanel so you can see server health and resource usage from the same place where you manage your services.

CustomerPanel already includes server management tools for eligible Cloud VPS and dedicated servers, such as:

  • Reinstalling the operating system
  • Rebooting or power cycling the machine where supported
  • Opening management or console tools where available
  • Updating reverse DNS (rDNS/PTR) records

The planned CustomerPanel Management API integration will make UnderShield statistics available closer to these existing server controls, so you can review health data before deciding whether to reboot, reinstall, open a ticket, or request support.

Privacy and access

UnderShield reports operational server metrics to UnderHost. It is intended for server health monitoring and support visibility, not for reading website content or managing your private application data.

As part of the broader UnderShield protection approach, UnderHost also uses privacy-conscious hosting locations, encrypted access paths, and network-level safeguards where available. Monitoring data is used to support service stability and incident response, not to inspect customer website content.

Because the agent reports server-level information, you should only enable UnderShield on servers where you are comfortable sharing operational health data with UnderHost support and monitoring systems. If you have questions about what is collected on a specific service, open a support ticket before opting in.

How to opt in

For eligible Cloud VPS and dedicated server orders, choose the UnderShield monitoring option during checkout if it is available. For an existing service, open a CustomerPanel ticket and ask whether UnderShield can be enabled for that server.

  1. Log in to CustomerPanel.
  2. Open the Cloud VPS or dedicated server service.
  3. Check whether UnderShield monitoring is available for that service.
  4. If you do not see the option, open a support ticket and include the service name or server IP.

UnderShield is most useful on production servers, customer-facing applications, busy websites, mail servers, and dedicated servers where early visibility can reduce troubleshooting time.

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Want UnderShield on your server?

UnderShield is optional and available free with eligible UnderHost Cloud VPS and dedicated server services. You can opt in during ordering or contact support to ask about availability for an existing service.

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