healthchecks/README.md

# healthchecks

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![Screenshot of Welcome page](/static/img/welcome.png?raw=true "Welcome Page")

![Screenshot of My Checks page](/static/img/my_checks.png?raw=true "My Checks Page")

![Screenshot of Period/Grace dialog](/static/img/period_grace.png?raw=true "Period/Grace Dialog")

![Screenshot of Cron dialog](/static/img/cron.png?raw=true "Cron Dialog")

![Screenshot of Integrations page](/static/img/channels.png?raw=true "Integrations Page")

healthchecks is a watchdog for your cron jobs. It's a web server that listens for pings from your cron jobs, plus a web interface.

It is live here: [http://healthchecks.io/](http://healthchecks.io/)

The building blocks are:

* Python 3
* Django 2
* PostgreSQL or MySQL

## Setting Up for Development

These are instructions for setting up healthchecks Django app
in development environment.

* install dependencies (Debian/Ubuntu)

        $ sudo apt-get update
        $ sudo apt-get install -y gcc python3-dev

* prepare directory for project code and virtualenv:

        $ mkdir -p ~/webapps
        $ cd ~/webapps

* prepare virtual environment
  (with virtualenv you get pip, we'll use it soon to install requirements):

        $ virtualenv --python=python3 hc-venv
        $ source hc-venv/bin/activate

* check out project code:

        $ git clone https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks.git

* install requirements (Django, ...) into virtualenv:

        $ pip install -r healthchecks/requirements.txt

* healthchecks is configured to use a SQLite database by default. To use
  PostgreSQL or MySQL database, create and edit `hc/local_settings.py` file.
  There is a template you can copy and edit as needed:

        $ cd ~/webapps/healthchecks
        $ cp hc/local_settings.py.example hc/local_settings.py

* create database tables and the superuser account:

        $ cd ~/webapps/healthchecks
        $ ./manage.py migrate
        $ ./manage.py createsuperuser

* run development server:

        $ ./manage.py runserver

The site should now be running at `http://localhost:8080`
To log into Django administration site as a super user,
visit `http://localhost:8080/admin`

## Configuration

Site configuration is kept in `hc/settings.py`. Additional configuration
is loaded from `hc/local_settings.py` file, if it exists. You
can create this file (should be right next to `settings.py` in the filesystem)
and override settings as needed.

Some useful settings keys to override are:

`SITE_ROOT` is used to build fully qualified URLs for pings, and for use in
emails and notifications. Example:

```python
SITE_ROOT = "https://my-monitoring-project.com"
```

`SITE_NAME` has the default value of "Mychecks" and is used throughout
the templates. Replace it with your own name to personalize your installation.
Example:

```python
SITE_NAME = "My Monitoring Project"
```

`REGISTRATION_OPEN` controls whether site visitors can create new accounts.
Set it to `False` if you are setting up a private healthchecks instance, but
it needs to be publicly accessible (so, for example, your cloud services
can send pings).

If you close new user registration, you can still selectively invite users
to your team account.


## Database Configuration

Database configuration is stored in `hc/settings.py` and can be overriden
in `hc/local_settings.py`. The default database engine is SQLite. To use
PostgreSQL, create `hc/local_settings.py` if it does not exist, and put the
following in it, changing it as neccessary:

```python
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE':   'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME':     'your-database-name-here',
        'USER':     'your-database-user-here',
        'PASSWORD': 'your-database-password-here',
        'TEST': {'CHARSET': 'UTF8'}
    }
}
```

For MySQL:

```python
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE':   'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME':     'your-database-name-here',
        'USER':     'your-database-user-here',
        'PASSWORD': 'your-database-password-here',
        'TEST': {'CHARSET': 'UTF8'}
    }
}
```

You can also use `hc/local_settings.py` to read database
configuration from environment variables like so:

```python
import os

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE':   os.environ['DB_ENGINE'],
        'NAME':     os.environ['DB_NAME'],
        'USER':     os.environ['DB_USER'],
        'PASSWORD': os.environ['DB_PASSWORD'],
        'TEST': {'CHARSET': 'UTF8'}
    }
}
```

## Sending Emails

healthchecks must be able to send email messages, so it can send out login
links and alerts to users. Put your SMTP server configuration in
`hc/local_settings.py` like so:

```python
EMAIL_HOST = "your-smtp-server-here.com"
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_HOST_USER = "username"
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = "password"
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
```

For more information, have a look at Django documentation,
[Sending Email](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/email/) section.

## Receiving Emails

healthchecks comes with a `smtpd` management command, which starts up a
SMTP listener service. With the command running, you can ping your
checks by sending email messages
to `[email protected]` email addresses.

Start the SMTP listener on port 2525:

    $ ./manage.py smtpd --port 2525

Send a test email:

    $ curl --url 'smtp://127.0.0.1:2525' \
        --mail-from '[email protected]' \
        --mail-rcpt '[email protected]' \
        -F '='



## Sending Status Notifications

healtchecks comes with a `sendalerts` management command, which continuously
polls database for any checks changing state, and sends out notifications as
needed. Within an activated virtualenv, you can manually run
the `sendalerts` command like so:

    $ ./manage.py sendalerts

In a production setup, you will want to run this command from a process
manager like [supervisor](http://supervisord.org/) or systemd.

## Database Cleanup

With time and use the healthchecks database will grow in size. You may
decide to prune old data: inactive user accounts, old checks not assigned
to users, records of outgoing email messages and records of received pings.
There are separate Django management commands for each task:

* Remove old records from `api_ping` table. For each check, keep 100 most
  recent pings:

    ```
    $ ./manage.py prunepings
    ```

* Remove checks older than 2 hours that are not assigned to users. Such
  checks are by-products of random visitors and robots loading the welcome
  page and never setting up an account:

    ```
    $ ./manage.py prunechecks
    ```

* Remove old records of sent notifications. For each check, remove
  notifications that are older than the oldest stored ping for same check.

    ```
    $ ./manage.py prunenotifications
    ```

* Remove user accounts that match either of these conditions:
 * Account was created more than 6 months ago, and user has never logged in.
   These can happen when user enters invalid email address when signing up.
 * Last login was more than 6 months ago, and the account has no checks.
   Assume the user doesn't intend to use the account any more and would
   probably *want* it removed.

    ```
    $ ./manage.py pruneusers
    ```

When you first try these commands on your data, it is a good idea to
test them on a copy of your database, not on the live database right away.
In a production setup, you should also have regular, automated database
backups set up.

## Integrations

### Discord

To enable Discord integration, you will need to:

* register a new application on https://discordapp.com/developers/applications/me
* add a redirect URI to your Discord application. The URI format is
  `SITE_ROOT/integrations/add_discord/`. For example, if you are running a
  development server on `localhost:8000` then the redirect URI would be
  `http://localhost:8000/integrations/add_discord/`
* Look up your Discord app's Client ID and Client Secret. Add them
  to your `hc/local_settings.py` file as `DISCORD_CLIENT_ID` and
  `DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET` fields.


### Pushover

To enable Pushover integration, you will need to:

* register a new application on https://pushover.net/apps/build
* enable subscriptions in your application and make sure to enable the URL
  subscription type
* add the application token and subscription URL to `hc/local_settings.py`, as
  `PUSHOVER_API_TOKEN` and `PUSHOVER_SUBSCRIPTION_URL`

### Telegram

* Create a Telegram bot by talking to the
[BotFather](https://core.telegram.org/bots#6-botfather). Set the bot's name,
description, user picture, and add a "/start" command.
* After creating the bot you will have the bot's name and token. Add them
to your `hc/local_settings.py` file as `TELEGRAM_BOT_NAME` and
`TELEGRAM_TOKEN` fields.
* Run `settelegramwebhook` management command. This command tells Telegram
where to forward channel messages by invoking Telegram's
[setWebhook](https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#setwebhook) API call:

    ```
    $ ./manage.py settelegramwebhook
    Done, Telegram's webhook set to: https://my-monitoring-project.com/integrations/telegram/bot/
    ```

For this to work, your `SITE_ROOT` needs to be correct and use "https://"
scheme.