Monitor Your Services Uptime Using Uptime Kuma

Uptime Kuma is a feature-rich yet simple to use uptime monitoring tool. It will allow you to monitor your servers and services uptime and also notify you in case of downtime.

TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read!)

Docker approach:

# Install Docker CE

docker volume create uptime-kuma

docker run -d --restart=always -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data --name uptime-kuma louislam/uptime-kuma:1

Non-docker approach:

# Install nodejs and npm

# Update npm
sudo npm install npm -g

git clone https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma.git
cd uptime-kuma
npm run setup

sudo npm install -g pm2
pm2 start server/server.js --name uptime-kuma

Step-by-Step Installation Guide

Installing, or rather, deploying Uptime Kuma using Docker is the easiest method as you won’t need to take care of extra dependency. Just run the crafted docker CLI command, and you’re all set!

But I will also explain how to deploy it using NodeJS plus PM2! So, you can choose which method fits you.

Prerequisites

For both approaches, allow port 3001 from your OS firewall and/or your active ServerStadium Security Profile.

Via Docker

Step 1:

Install docker of course! You can follow the guide here.

Step 2:

Create a docker volume to ensure persistent data

docker volume create uptime-kuma

Step 3:

Run uptime-kuma

docker run -d --restart=always -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data --name uptime-kuma louislam/uptime-kuma:1

Step 4:

Make sure uptime-kuma is running!

docker ps

Step 5:

Proceed to the First setup section!

Non-docker deployment

Uptime Kuma requires nodejs version >= 14, git and npm.

Step 1: Installing nodejs package

For RHEL/CentOS/Alma/Rocky 8

Check dnf module for nodejs

sudo dnf module list nodejs

In this article, I will install version 16:

sudo dnf module install nodejs:16

For Ubuntu 20.04

Pull the NodeSource PPA. If you wish to install another version, replace the “16” below with any version you want to install:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x -o nodesource_setup.sh

Then, execute the script:

sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh

Lastly, install nodejs

sudo apt install nodejs -y

Step 2: Building Uptime Kuma

This part and beyond would work for whichever Linux distro you’re using.

Pull Uptime Kuma repo and then enter the cloned directory:

git clone https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma.git
cd uptime-kuma

After that, run the following command to start building Uptime Kuma:

npm run setup

Once it’s done, test it!

node server/server.js

If it outputs something like this, then the setup is good.

Exit it by pressing CTRL+C. Next, we will run it with pm2 so it would run in the background.

Step 3: Setup pm2

Install the PM2 module via npm

sudo npm install -g pm2

Then, run the following command. Make sure you run it in the uptime-kuma directory:

pm2 start server/server.js --name uptime-kuma

Check if it’s running well in the background by pm2 status command:

First time setup

Yay, now it’s ready! Access your Uptime Kuma via http://YOUR-IP:3001

The URL looks ugly, right? If you want to get rid of it and use SSL to make it more secure, use a reverse proxy. You can read this article on how to use Nginx Proxy Manager to manage this kind of hassle easily.

Create your admin user with a strong and complicated password. Then you’ll be brought to this page:

Proceed to the next section!

Adding monitor

Uptime Kuma supports various types of monitoring. Here, I will cover most of them.

Basic HTTP(s)

Basic HTTP/HTTPS monitoring, as the title describes it, monitors basic HTTP/HTTPS connection. Uptime Kuma simply tries to reach the designated website, and it will report if it’s reachable and the latency.

Step 1. On the dashboard, click Add New Monitor

Step 2. Select HTTP(s) for the monitor type.

Step 3. Give it a friendly name, e.g. My Blog Website

Step 4. Specify the URL

Step 5. Set the checking interval.

Step 6. Set the number of retries before Uptime Kuma sends a notification/alert.

Step 7. Set the retry check interval. When a monitor is reported down, this interval will override the previous checking interval.

Last step. Save!

In the Advanced section, an option allows you to flip the status. So, when the website is reachable, then it’s considered DOWN and will be alerted. Also, you can set the maximum redirects. Lastly, specify the status code it should return and consider it UP.

HTTP(s) keyword

Keyword monitoring will monitor a web page and find a specific keyword, not the HTTP service itself. When the keyword is not present, then the website is considered DOWN. This will allow you to quickly notice if your website is being defaced, hacked, or if something unexpected happens to the page.

The steps are similar to the previous one, but you’ll need to specify which keyword should be present on the webpage/site.

For example, on the ServerStadium KB page, the footer has a text which says “Wow Technologies, Inc. Company” and we want to monitor that.

The configurations are as follows:

Then if you click Save, a green notification will pop up and says that the keyword is found! And the monitor states UP.

TCP port

This will monitor a specific port from a given server. Good use of this will be to monitor if certain services are down. For example, you will know that your SMTP service is down when the designated port is no longer open to the public, or any management ports or anything, you name it.

Follow the steps from the Basic HTTP monitoring part until step 3. Then fill in the Hostname field with the desired server and the port with the TCP port to be monitored.

Ping

Self-explanatory, it will monitor the host by sending it ping probes. The simplest monitoring types. You’ll only need to fill in the server host/IP.

DNS record

DNS monitoring allows you to monitor a given DNS record. Whether it’s A, MX, CNAME, TXT, or any record type, you can quickly take action if your DNS records are no longer propagated, somehow.

Step 1. Set the monitoring type to DNS

Step 2. Always specify a friendly name.

Step 3. Specify the hostname. E.g. google.com

Step 4. Specify the resolver address. You can choose any DNS server, e.g. Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 or Google’s 8.8.8.8

Step 5. Specify which DNS record you want to monitor.

And the rest would be the same as the other monitoring types.

Push monitoring

You can monitor any servers that aren’t reachable from the internet but can reach the internet. Servers behind NAT, or having outgoing internet access only using a proxy for instance.

Simply put the Push URL in a cron job on a minute basis, and you’re all set.

Cronjob example:

* * * * * /usr/bin/curl -s 'http://HOSTNAME:3001/api/push/RGjeIGaV9p?msg=OK&ping='

Setting up notifications

Uptime Kuma supports a variety of notification types. But here, I will explain only email and telegram notifications.

Email

Email notification setup is pretty straightforward. You’ll only need to set up SMTP credentials, like when connecting with a mail client.

After filling in the required information, press the test button to check if the credentials are correct:

It will show a green notification box in the corner if Uptime Kuma can connect

Otherwise, it will throw an error and explain why it fails to connect. Next, check your mailbox for the test email.

Then, try to make a fake downtime by setting an invalid hostname/port (or any parameter) so it will send an alert.

Check your mailbox; you should receive an alert for it!

Tada!

Telegram

Telegram notification setup will require you to prepare the following elements:

1. Creating a Telegram BOT
2. Direct Chat/Group/Channel Chat ID

Creating a Telegram BOT

Open your Telegram app (Mobile or PC), and search for @botfather. Be careful of any fake botfather accounts; make sure it’s exactly @botfather and has a verified icon on the name.

Then add the bot and start creating a bot.

In the end, the BotFather will give you the API token you will use in Uptime Kuma. Keep it safe, and don’t share it with anybody.

The first part is done; let’s go to the second one.

Obtaining the Chat ID

A chat ID is the ID of a direct chat or channel or group where you want Uptime Kuma to send the notification. To get this ID, you’ll need to determine whether you want a group, a private channel, or just a plain chat (the bot will send the notification directly to your telegram account, not via group/channel).

If you create (or existing) a group or channel, you must invite the bot to the group/channel and assign writing permission to it. So, the bot will be able to post the notifications.

Then, add another bot called @JsonDumpBot that allows you to retrieve metadata of a message, including the chat ID, by simply forwarding the message to this bot.

First, post a dummy text in the group/channel or your own bot, then forward the message to the JsonDumpBot. You’ll be replied with the metadata in JSON format.

Find the part where it says “chat” and “id”. Then, you get the chat ID.

Notification setup

Back to Uptime Kuma, create a new notification setup and choose Telegram as the type. Fill in the required information.

Test the notification as always. If you set it up correctly, it will send you the test notification.

Done! The telegram notification is now ready! Yay! Now, do the real test just like the email one.

It’s awesome! Isn’t it?

Conclusion

To sum up, deploying Uptime Kuma is quick and easy. Also, adding monitors and configuring notifications are simple, thanks to its user-friendly interface.

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