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Monitoring

sitesolide setup installs a monitor that checks the server every minute. Until you connect a heartbeat and a webhook, it writes to the server's journal only.

What it checks

Link to the section What it checks
CheckAlerts when
CaddyNot running, or restarted by systemd on its own.
Every served siteNo valid HTTPS answer, or a status of 500 or above.
Project servicesA unit failed, stopped or crashing in a loop, or a scheduled run failed.
CertificatesOne expires within 14 days.
Disk and memoryA disk 90% full, or less than 10% of memory available.
BackupsThe last run failed, or is over 26 hours old.

A failure is reported after two failed passes in a row, or three in five: within two to three minutes. You get one message when it goes down, one when it recovers, and the dashboard lists it under Issues.

Create a heartbeat check

Link to the section Create a heartbeat check

The heartbeat is a dead man's switch: the monitor pings an outside service every minute, and that service alerts you when the pings stop. It is what notices the server itself dying.

  1. Sign up at healthchecks.io. The free tier is enough, and your email is already an alert channel.
  2. Add a check with a period of 1 minute and a grace of 5 minutes.
  3. Copy its ping URL, https://hc-ping.com/<uuid>. Keep it secret: whoever holds it can hide an outage.

Set the addresses

Link to the section Set the addresses

Create the root-owned alerting file on the server, once:

ssh <user@host> 'sudo install -m 600 -o root -g root /dev/null /etc/sitesolide/dashboard-monitor.env'

Then fill it from the dashboard:

  1. Open the dashboard site, then Secrets, and unlock.
  2. In dashboard-monitor.env, set HEARTBEAT_URL to the ping URL. The monitor reads it at its next pass, with nothing to restart.
  3. For chat messages too, set ALERT_WEBHOOK_URL: a Slack, Discord or Google Chat webhook, or https://ntfy.sh/<topic> with a topic nobody would guess.

Both addresses must be https. The message format follows the address; ALERT_WEBHOOK_FORMAT (slack, discord, googlechat, text or json) sets it for any other.

Note

Only a platform failure, such as Caddy, a full disk or the dashboard, sends the heartbeat to <url>/fail. One project down still pings success, and lists the failure in the ping's body.

Check it worked

Link to the section Check it worked
ssh <user@host> 'sudo journalctl -u sitesolide-monitor -n 20 -o cat | grep "checks," | tail -n 1'
41 checks, 0 down, 0 failing; heartbeat ok, webhook idle

Look for heartbeat ok, and for the check to turn green on healthchecks.io within two minutes. Without a webhook, the line ends with webhook unconfigured.

What an alert looks like

Link to the section What an alert looks like
sitesolide monitor, example.com: 1 down
DOWN https://shop.example.com/ answered 502 (since 2026-10-04 14:02 UTC)

When the site answers again, a second message says RECOVERED.

Next steps

Link to the section Next steps
  • Backups: the snapshots the backup check watches.
  • Your server: reboot and look after the server the monitor watches.