ciao

ciao checks HTTP(S) URL endpoints for a HTTP status code (or errors on the lower TCP stack) and sends a notification on status change via E-Mail or Webhooks.

It uses Cron syntax to schedule the checks and comes along with a Web UI and a RESTful JSON API.

You can find more screenshots on the Homepage.

ciao (/tʃaʊ/) - check in and out - borrowed from Italian ciao for greeting someone.

Motivation: create an open source web application for checking URL statuses with an UI and a REST API which is easy to install and maintain (no external dependencies like Databases, Caches etc.) in public and private environments.

Follow @brotandgames on Twitter to get the latest News like Releases. Use #ciaohttp Hashtag for ciao related stuff.

Quickstart

docker run --name ciao -p 8090:3000 brotandgames/ciao

Open localhost:8090 in your webbrowser.

Features

• Check HTTP/S endpoints in an interval
• Use Cron syntax like * * * * * (every minute), */15 * * * * (every 15 minutes), @hourly or @daily etc.
• Web UI
• RESTful JSON API
• Get a notification on status change via E-Mail eg. Gmail, Sendgrid, MailChimp or Webhooks eg. RocketChat, Slack etc. (optional)
• Configuration via ENVIRONMENT variables (suitable for most runtimes)
• Expose Prometheus Metrics endpoint /metrics with information to digest by tools like Grafana (optional)
• Protect with HTTP Basic auth on application basis (optional, only recommended in combination with TLS)
• Instructions for installing/deploying in/to different Platforms
• Docker Image
• Helm Chart

Configuration

ciao is configured via ENVIRONMENT variables following the 12-factor app methodology.

• SECRET_KEY_BASE will be auto-generated if you omit it
• Time zone is configurable per TIME_ZONE variable (default: UTC) eg. TIME_ZONE="Vienna" - you can find all possible values by executing docker run --rm brotandgames/ciao rake time:zones (since version 1.2.0)
• Check SMTP Configuration for all possible configuration variables, notes and example configurations for Gmail, Sendgrid etc.
• Check Webhook Configuration for instructions how to send (webhook) notifications to RocketChat, Slack etc. (since version 1.4.0)
• You can enable HTTP Basic auth for ciao by defining BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME and BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD eg. BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME="ciao-admin" and BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD="sensitive_password" (since version 1.3.0)
• You can enable a Prometheus Metrics endpoint served under /metrics by setting PROMETHEUS_ENABLED=true - furthermore you can enable HTTP Basic auth for this endpoint by defining PROMETHEUS_BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME="ciao-metrics" and PROMETHEUS_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD="sensitive_password" (since version 1.5.0)

Install

You can install ciao via the official Docker image brotandgames/ciao or using Git and installing the dependencies manually.

By mounting a Docker volume you can avoid loosing data on restart or upgrade.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable authentication (eg. HTTP Basic auth) and TLS certificates if you serve ciao publicly.

Via Docker image

docker run \
  --name ciao \
  -p 8090:3000 \
  -e SECRET_KEY_BASE="sensitive_secret_key_base" \
  -e SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourhost.com \
  -e SMTP_EMAIL_FROM="[email protected]" \
  -e SMTP_EMAIL_TO="[email protected]" \
  -e SMTP_PORT=587 \
  -e SMTP_DOMAIN=smtp.yourhost.com \
  -e SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain \
  -e SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true \
  -e SMTP_USERNAME=ciao \
  -e SMTP_PASSWORD="sensitive_password" \
  -v /opt/ciao/data:/app/db/sqlite \
  brotandgames/ciao

Open localhost:8090 in your webbrowser.

Via Docker-compose

Create docker-compose.yml file

version: "3"
services:
  ciao:
    image: brotandgames/ciao
    container_name: ciao
    ports:
      - '8090:3000'
    environment:
      - SECRET_KEY_BASE=sensitive_secret_key_base
      - SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourhost.com
      - [email protected]
      - [email protected]
      - SMTP_PORT=587
      - SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain
      - SMTP_DOMAIN=smtp.yourhost.com
      - SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true
      - SMTP_USERNAME=ciao
      - SMTP_PASSWORD=sensitive_password
    volumes:
      - /opt/ciao/data:/app/db/sqlite/

Pull and run

docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d

Open localhost:8090 in the webbrowser.

Note: if you have problems with environment variables (quoting, spaces etc), take a look at these GitHub issues (1, 2) and these Stack Overflow questions (1, 2).

Via Git clone

# Clone repo
git clone https://github.com/brotandgames/ciao

cd ciao

# Install all dependencies (rubygems)
RAILS_ENV=production bundle install

# Configure
export SECRET_KEY_BASE="sensitive_secret_key_base" \
  SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourhost.com \
  SMTP_EMAIL_FROM="[email protected]" \
  SMTP_EMAIL_TO="[email protected]" \
  SMTP_PORT=587 \
  SMTP_DOMAIN=smtp.yourhost.com \
  SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain \
  SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true \
  SMTP_USERNAME=ciao \
  SMTP_PASSWORD="sensitive_password"
  
# Precompile assets
rails assets:precompile

# Run start script - basically this is check SECRET_KEY_BASE, database init/migrate and rails server
RAILS_ENV=production ./start.sh

Open localhost:3000 in the webbrowser.

REST API

GET /checks.json

Show collection (array) of all checks

curl -X GET -H "Content-type: application/json" /checks.json

GET /checks/<:id>.json

Show a specific check

curl -X GET -H "Content-type: application/json" /checks/<:id>.json

POST /checks.json

Create a check

curl -X POST -H "Content-type: application/json" /checks.json \
  -d '{ "name": "brotandgames.com", "active": true, "url": "https://brotandgames.com", "cron": "* * * *"}'

PATCH/PUT /checks/<:id>.json

Update a check

curl -X PUT -H "Content-type: application/json" /checks/<:id>.json \
  -d '{ "name": "brotandgames.com", "active": false, "url": "https://brotandgames.com", "cron": "* * * *"}'

DELETE /checks/<:id>.json

Delete a check

curl -X DELETE -H "Content-type: application/json" /checks/<:id>.json

Backup & Restore

State is stored in an internal SQLite database located in db/sqlite/production.sqlite3.

Note: Prior to version 1.1.0 the database was located in db/ (missing sqlite subfolder). From 1.1.0 onwards the location is db/sqlite/ to enable docker to use a volume.

Backup

docker cp ciao:/app/db/sqlite/production.sqlite3 production.sqlite3.backup

Restore

docker cp production.sqlite3.backup ciao:/app/db/sqlite/production.sqlite3
docker restart ciao

Prior to version 1.2.0: visit /checks/admin and recreate the background jobs for active checks.

Upgrade

1. Backup the database
2. Run container with new version
3. Restore the database

Deploy

Here you'll find instructions for deploying ciao to different platforms like Kubernetes or Dokku.

By mounting a Docker or Kubernetes volume you can avoid loosing data on restart or upgrade.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable authentication (eg. HTTP Basic auth) and TLS certificates if you serve ciao publicly.

Kubernetes

Via Helm

Install ciao via Helm Chart from the official repository.

Source is located in ./chart and released to https://releases.brotandgames.com/helm-charts.

1. Use helm repo add command to add the Helm chart repository that contains charts to install ciao.

helm repo add brotandgames https://releases.brotandgames.com/helm-charts

# helm search brotandgames
# should output something like this
# NAME              CHART VERSION APP VERSION DESCRIPTION
# brotandgames/ciao 0.1.0         latest      Ciao - HTTP checks & tests (private & public) monitoring

2. Install ciao via helm upgrade --install

Quickstart (without configuring)

helm upgrade --install --namespace your-namespace your-release-name brotandgames/ciao

With configuration

helm upgrade --install --namespace your-namespace your-release-name brotandgames/ciao \
  --set env.SECRET_KEY_BASE="sensitive_secret_key_base" \
  --set env.SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourhost.com \
  --set env.SMTP_EMAIL_FROM="[email protected]" \
  --set env.SMTP_EMAIL_TO="[email protected]" \
  --set env.SMTP_PORT=587 \
  --set env.SMTP_DOMAIN=smtp.yourhost.com \
  --set env.SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain \
  --set env.SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true \
  --set env.SMTP_USERNAME=ciao \
  --set env.SMTP_PASSWORD="sensitive_password"

Via kubectl

The following code snippent will create a Kubernetes

• Namespace monitoring,
• Secret ciao,
• Deployment ciao and
• Service ciao.

kubectl apply -f k8s.yaml

# k8s.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: monitoring
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: ciao
  namespace: monitoring
data:
  # all values should be base64 encoded
  # so some_secret would be c29tZV9zZWNyZXQ=
  SECRET_KEY_BASE: some_secret
  SMTP_ADDRESS: smtp_address
  SMTP_EMAIL_FROM: [email protected]
  SMTP_EMAIL_TO: [email protected]
  SMTP_PORT: 465
  SMTP_DOMAIN: mail.somedomain.com
  SMTP_AUTHENTICATION: plain
  SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO: true
  SMTP_USERNAME: smtp_some_username
  SMTP_PASSWORD: smtp_some_password
  SMTP_SSL: true
  BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME: auth_some_username
  BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD: auth_some_password
---
apiVersion: apps/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: ciao
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: ciao
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: brotandgames/ciao:latest
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        name: ciao
        volumeMounts: # Emit if you do not have persistent volumes
        - mountPath: /app/db/sqlite/
          name: persistent-volume
          subPath: ciao
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: 256Mi
            cpu: 200m
          limits:
            memory: 512Mi
            cpu: 400m
        envFrom:
        - secretRef:
            name: ciao
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: ciao
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  ports:
    - port: 80
      targetPort: 3000
      protocol: TCP
  type: ClusterIP
  selector:
    app: ciao

Dokku

1. Create app

dokku apps:create ciao

2. Configure

dokku config:set --no-restart ciao \
  SECRET_KEY_BASE="sensitive_secret_key_base" \
  SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.yourhost.com \
  SMTP_EMAIL_FROM="[email protected]" \
  SMTP_EMAIL_TO="[email protected]" \
  SMTP_PORT=587 \
  SMTP_DOMAIN=smtp.yourhost.com \
  SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain \
  SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true \
  SMTP_USERNAME=ciao \
  SMTP_PASSWORD="sensitive_password"

3. Deploy ciao using your deployment method eg. Dockerfile Deployment, Docker Image Deployment etc.

4. Protect your ciao instance by enabling HTTP Basic auth (using dokku-http-auth) and installing Lets Encrypt certificates via dokku-letsencrypt.

Contributing

We encourage you to contribute to ciao in whatever way you like!

Versioning

Semantic Versioning 2.x

In a nutshell:

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

1. MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
2. MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
3. PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

License

ciao is released under the MIT License.

Guestbook

Why not reinvent the guestbook?

Maintainer

https://github.com/brotandgames