How to Track Inode Usage in cPanel: Introducing a Free cPanel Plugin

When it comes to managing a website, inode usage isn’t something most people think about every day, but it becomes more important as your website grows. Simply put, inode usage refers to the number of files and directories you’re using on your hosting account. It may not affect most website owners on a daily basis, but as your inode count increases, it can have an impact on how your hosting server performs.

In this article, we’ll break down what an inode is, why it’s important to keep track of, and how you can easily monitor it in cPanel with a free plugin we recently developed. Whether you’re running a small business or managing a growing website, understanding inode consumption can help you handle your hosting account more efficiently. Sure, you can always use the server Terminal to check inodes usage, but let’s be honest—a graphical interface makes things a whole lot easier, right?

I’m writing this for both web hosting clients (the consumers) and web hosting companies (the providers) who aren’t offering such an interface to their clients yet. Don’t worry—by the end of this article, you’ll be able to provide it.

What Is an Inode and How Does It Work?

Before we get into tracking inodes, let’s first talk about what an inode is and how it affects your server.

An inode is basically a data structure that the file system uses to store information about a file or directory. Every file and folder on your server has an inode that tracks important details like its size, permissions, owner, and where its data is located on the disk. But keep in mind, an inode doesn’t actually store the content of the file—just the metadata that helps the file system manage it.

When we talk about inode usage, we’re referring to the total number of inodes being used by the files and directories on your server. Every file and folder you create or upload uses one inode, regardless of how big or small it is. This includes everything—images, scripts, emails, directories, and even those hidden system files you don’t normally see.

Why Is Inode Usage Important?

Inode usage is important because it directly affects your ability to manage your files. Most web hosting providers set limits on the number of inodes you can use within your account. This is because inode usage impacts server performance.

As your inode usage increases, your server needs to work harder to manage and track your files. High inode usage can lead to slowdowns in the file system, which can ultimately affect the performance of your website and other services running on the server.

Inode usage limits also prevent users from overwhelming the server with thousands or millions of small files that could slow down overall system performance. By keeping inode usage under control, hosting providers can ensure that their servers run efficiently and that resources are shared fairly among all users.

Why Do Hosting Providers Set Inode Limits?

The inode limits set by hosting providers are there for several important reasons. While you might think that limitations are only placed on storage space, in reality, inodes are just as critical when managing a shared hosting environment.

Even if you have plenty of storage space left on your server, once you hit the inode limit, you won’t be able to create new files or directories. This can become a major issue for websites that generate lots of small files, like those running content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress or Joomla.

Additionally, the more inodes you have, the longer it takes to back up your server. This means that as a hosting provider, you need to maintain a healthy balance and keep a close eye on inode usage, just like you would with disk space. Proper monitoring of inode usage ensures that your backups are efficient and that server performance remains stable for all users.

Inode Usage at the Hardware Level

Inode limitations don’t just apply at the software level—they also exist at the hardware level. Every storage device, whether it’s a traditional hard drive or a solid-state drive (SSD), comes with a fixed number of inodes. These limits are typically set when the device is formatted, and they determine how many files and directories the device can handle. Once you run out of inodes on a storage device, you can’t create any new files, even if there is still plenty of available storage space.

The number of inodes a storage device has is generally based on the total disk space and the file system in use, not the brand of the device. For example, file systems like ext4 (commonly used in Linux servers) allocate a specific number of inodes based on the size of the disk when the drive is formatted. Larger disks tend to have more inodes, but the ratio is fixed during formatting. This means that even with terabytes of free space, you could run into issues if you exhaust the available inodes.

Tracking Inode Usage in cPanel

For a long time, managing and monitoring inode usage was a manual process. At ChemiCloud, our clients began requesting an easy-to-use graphical interface to monitor their inode usage directly within cPanel. Before this, we were offering clients the option to track and count inode usage via the Terminal in cPanel.

Offering Inode Usage Via the Terminal

The method of using the Terminal to track inode usage involved guiding clients through a series of commands to check their inode count. While this method worked for more technically inclined users, many of our clients found it cumbersome to access and difficult to interpret the results. They began requesting a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that could easily display inode usage at a glance.

Despite providing detailed guides, it became clear that a GUI solution was necessary for better usability and client satisfaction. We began exploring the options available within cPanel and the web hosting community to find a solution.

The Search for an Inode Usage cPanel Plugin

Our first step was to approach cPanel directly to request the implementation of a native inode usage GUI. Unfortunately, cPanel did not have an immediate solution for this, and after further investigation, we found that no free or paid third-party plugins were available to address the specific need for real-time inode usage tracking.

We did discover that some companies had developed their own inode usage plugins, but they kept these tools as proprietary assets. As a result, no publicly available solution existed for small or large companies looking to offer this feature to their customers.

Developing Our Own Inode Usage Plugin

Faced with the lack of an existing solution, we decided to develop our own inode usage plugin. Our goal was clear: to create a tool for tracking and breaking down inode usage, fully integrated within cPanel, so we could offer this functionality to our clients. We wanted to ensure the tool was both powerful and easy to use, so that even those with non-technical skills would be able to check and understand their cPanel account’s inode usage breakdown.

The result is the cPanel Inode Usage Plugin, which we now use on all our servers at ChemiCloud. This plugin provides a detailed breakdown of inode usage across directories and updates the data in real-time with every page reload. Unlike other solutions, it allows users to track their inode usage without needing to rely on technical commands in the Terminal.

After seeing the success and positive feedback from our clients, we realized that this plugin should be made public. We believe that any web hosting company or cPanel server administrator who wants to provide this feature should have access to it immediately and without limitations. At the end of the day, it’s a tool that helps clients better manage their own data, and making it widely available supports this goal.

Why We’re Making the Plugin Public Free

At ChemiCloud, we strongly believe in empowering clients to manage their own data. By providing a free and open-source tool to track inode usage, we’re contributing to the broader web hosting community and ensuring that users everywhere have the tools they need to manage their data efficiently.

We believe that clients deserve transparency and control over their hosting environment. Inode usage is a fundamental part of file management, and by making this plugin publicly available, we’re helping clients gain a clearer understanding of their file systems—assuming, of course, that the hosting company adopts this plugin or develops something similar.

If you’re hosted with a company that doesn’t currently offer an inode usage tracking interface, you can easily point them to this article, and they can adopt it quickly and seamlessly.

A Look at the cPanel Inode Usage Plugin

Below, we provide a sneak peek at the cPanel Inode Usage Plugin. The interface displays inode usage for each directory, and users can navigate through the directories to identify where most of their inodes are being consumed.

How to Install the cPanel Inode Usage Plugin

Now that you understand how valuable this plugin can be, we’ll walk you through the installation process. To get started, ensure that you have root access to your cPanel/WHM server.

Requirements

• Root access to your server
• cPanel installed on your server

If you’ve reached this point, congratulations! The cPanel Inode Usage Plugin is now successfully installed, giving you and your clients a much easier way to monitor and manage inode usage.

At ChemiCloud, we believe that empowering clients with the tools they need to take full control of their hosting environment is vital to their success. That’s why we developed this plugin—to make tracking inode usage simple, accessible, and real-time, no matter how complex your server setup may be.

This tool isn’t just for our clients—it’s for anyone in the web hosting community who’s looking for a clearer understanding of their inode consumption. By offering it for free, we hope to contribute to a more transparent and user-friendly web hosting experience across the industry.

If you found this article and plugin helpful, we’d love for you to share it with others who might benefit from it. And if you have ideas or suggestions for how we can make this tool even better, we invite you to join us in improving it. Contributions and feedback from the community are always welcome. Together, we can make hosting simpler and more efficient for everyone.