Monitor your Systems with Scripts running in the Cloud

Checkson periodically runs your monitoring scripts written in e.g. Bash, Python, Javascript, Typescript wrapped in Docker containers and notifies you when they detect an issue using Slack, Email, PagerDuty and webhooks.

Get started (it's free)

Documentation

Features

What you get with Checkson

A code-first approach to monitor the things you are responsible for

Freedom of programming language

Thanks to Docker you can implement your check logic in any programming language you like. Most people use scripting languages such as Bash, Python, Javascript, Typescript or Ruby but you can also use compiled languages such as Go, Rust, C#, Kotlin or Java.

Private Docker images

The Docker images of your checks do not have to be public. You can use private images from Docker registries such as Docker Hub, GitHub Container Registry, AWS ECR, Google Container Registry, Azure Container Registry, Quay.io, etc.

Integration with your existing tools

Checkson works well with GitHub and GitLab. You can build your Docker images using GitHub Actions or GitLab CI/CD and host them on the respective built-in registry. The meta-data of your check (e.g. how often it runs) can also be stored in your Git repository and applied using the Checkson CLI.

Supports leading notification systems

When your scripts detect that something is wrong, you are notified using PagerDuty, Slack, or E-Email. You can also forward notifications via webhooks, so you can integrate any tool you like.

Checkson CLI

There is a full-featured, single-binary command line client. This makes it possible to adopt a monitoring-as-code strategy.

Free plan available

There is a free plan that allows you to create two checks. They will be run with a maximum interval of 10 minutes. The free plan is not time-limited, you can use it as long as you want.

How to create a Check

Step 1: Implement your check logic

Write your monitoring logic in a programming language of your choice. Most people use a scripting language such as Bash, Python, Javascript, Typescript or Ruby. Test locally until it works.

Step 2: Wrap it in a Docker container

Write a Dockerfile, build your image and push it to a Docker registry like Docker Hub.

Step 3: Create the check on Checkson

Configure your check using the CLI or the web-UI including notification channels.

Ready!

A minimal Example

In this minimal example, a Python-based check is created that verifies if a website returns HTTP 200. You can see the Dockerfile for wrapping the code in a container and the shell commands used to setup the check on Checkson.

Dockerfile

FROM python:3.10
            
COPY . /app
WORKDIR /app
RUN pip install requests

ENTRYPOINT ["python", "app.py"]

app.py

import os 
import sys
import requests
        
URL = os.environ.get('TARGET_URL')
r = requests.get(URL)

if r.status_code == 200: 
  sys.exit(0)
else:
  sys.exit(1)

Shell



> docker build . -t checkson/simple-check:1.0
> docker push checkson/simple-check:1.0

> checkson create simple-check \
    --image checkson/simple-check:1.0 \
    --env TARGET_URL=https://example.com

Monitoring ideas

Here are some things that you can use Checkson for

Technical SEO Monitoring

Use Lighthouse or Google's free PageSpeed Insights API to monitor the performance and technical SO properties of your website. See how it works.

Test the login to your website

Fill out your login form and check if access to the protected part of your website is granted. See how it works.

Check if the payment process of your web shop is working

Use Playwright or Cypress to perform a complete checkout process including payment.

End-to-end monitoring for IoT devices

Check if your IoT device can connect to your MQTT broker and can send data. Check if that data can be queried via your REST API.

Check the TLS settings and certificates of your servers

Use command line tools like testssl to check if your certificates are valid and that the settings of your webservers are safe.

Ensure that your servers do not expose critical ports

Check if your ports are not exposing e.g. SSH to the Internet.

HTTP redirects

Test if important redirects, e.g. from your old URL to your new one, are working as they should. See how it works.

Node RED

Use Node RED to implement your checks in a low-code manner.

Monitor Docker Registries

Monitor if certain tags exist in your Docker Registry. See how it works.

Find out more content in our Blog

View all posts »

Using nmap for Continuous vulnerability Monitoring

We will use nmap and Checkson for monitoring SSH daemons for CVEs.

End to End Monitoring of IoT Systems

You have an IoT solution. It's important to your business, so you want it to be reliable. If you don't have end-to-end monitoring, it won't be.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Checkson good for?

Checkson is well suited for implementing complex end-to-end checks. They can involve HTTPS, but also other protocols, such as SMTP, FTP, MQTT, AMQP, you name it.

What is it not suitable for?

Checkson is not meant to replace your infrastructure checks or your Kubernetes monitoring. There are better tools for this, e.g. Grafana/Prometheus.

Where are the checks executed?

The containers created from the image you configure are executed in our cloud environment. This means that you cannot access any internal services, but you should use the external interfaces of the system you are monitoring.

Are there limitations?

Yes, your container can only run for 60 seconds. By then it must have stopped with an exit-code indicating if the monitored system is healthy or not

Is there a free plan?

Yes. You can run up to 2 checks for free. For more checks you can subscribe to a plan.

Can I use it without the command line utility?

Yes, using the command line utility is optional. You can also configure checks using the web app.

Try Checkson now

You can create two checks for free. Both of these checks can run every 10 minutes (or less frequently).

Create your first check