CoreTether monitors Linux servers over SSH, tracking system resources and alerting on critical limits. It idles below 30 MB RAM.

Why I built it
I wanted to monitor my remote Linux server directly from my Windows desktop, without keeping terminal windows open or running a heavy web dashboard. Most existing tools felt bloated — even Windows File Explorer idles at around 50 MB of RAM. So I built a lightweight utility that uses even less, while still alerting me the moment something goes wrong.

How I solved it

• Built a native system tray app in C# that runs quietly in the background, with a real-time summary on hover
• Integrated Ssh.Net to poll live metrics (CPU, RAM, disk, temperature, network) over SSH, with no need for custom server-side daemons
• Added configurable threshold alerts that notify me instantly when any metric crosses a critical limit
• Optimized background worker routines for minimal memory footprint

Result
CoreTether stays under 30 MB of RAM idle (peaking around 40 MB) while polling live server metrics every second — lighter than most background apps on Windows, and it’s kept me from missing a server issue since I started using it.