What the page shows

The Daily Process Log lists the processes and accounts that used the most CPU, memory and MySQL time during the day. It is one of the quickest ways to find which account is slowing a server down. The data comes from samples taken by dcpumon. When no samples are recorded, the page is empty.

Step 1: check the cron service

systemctl status crond --no-pager      # AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CloudLinux
systemctl enable --now crond          # start it and keep it enabled

If cron was stopped, every scheduled cPanel task stopped with it, including backups and updates. Start it, then wait 10 to 15 minutes and reload the page.

Step 2: check the dcpumon cron entry

crontab -l | grep -i dcpumon

A line that runs dcpumon every five minutes should appear, for example with */5 * * * *. The exact command depends on your cPanel version. If nothing appears, the entry was removed, often by someone editing root’s crontab by hand. Step 4 restores it.

Step 3: check disk space and logs

df -h /var /usr/local
grep -i dcpumon /var/log/cron | tail -n 5
tail -n 50 /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log

A full disk stops dcpumon from saving its data. The cron log shows whether dcpumon ran recently; cPanel’s error log may show why it failed.

Step 4: repair cPanel

A forced update reinstalls cPanel’s files and puts back its standard cron entries:

/scripts/upcp --force

Run it inside screen, because it can take a while. Afterwards, check the crontab again and give dcpumon time to collect new samples. The page fills up over the following hours; past days stay empty.

Step 5: run dcpumon by hand (optional)

To confirm the tool itself works, run the command from the crontab entry by hand as root and check for errors. If it reports a missing file or permission problem, the forced update in Step 4 usually fixes it.

How to read the Daily Process Log

Once data appears, the page lists each user with the share of CPU, memory and MySQL processes they used, averaged over the day. Click a user to see their busiest processes. Look for:

• One account using a large share of CPU every day: often a busy store, a heavy plugin or a bot crawling the site.
• High MySQL use from one account: slow queries or missing database indexes.
• The nobody user near the top: processes run by the web server, which you can trace through the Apache status page.

Compare several days before you act. A single busy day is often just a traffic spike or a backup.

Troubleshooting

On CloudLinux servers

CloudLinux collects its own, more detailed statistics per account. In WHM, CloudLinux Manager shows CPU, memory, I/O and entry-process use for each user, and account owners see their own figures in cPanel’s Resource Usage page. See our CloudLinux guide.

Other ways to see what uses resources

• htop shows live CPU and memory use by process and user.
• WHM > Server Status > Apache Status shows the current web requests.
• mysqladmin processlist shows the running database queries.