URL Checks

URL checks send a HTTP request to a given URL and evaluate that it returns the expected response code and response body. These checks can be allowed to follow redirects but will not attempt to render any webpages or make subsequent additional calls to fetch included content such as images or css, for such checks Web Journey Checks should be used.

Requests made as part of this check can be configured to use a proxy, and have customisable request headers and request bodies allowing them to be used for a wide range of use cases.

Adding a URL Check

As with all checks, URL checks can be managed through the API or using Terraform. See the relevant documentation for each for adding URL checks through these. This guide will show how to add a URL check through the web console.

• Login to Web Console and select Checks from the main menu.
  
  
  
  
• Click Add located towards the top left of the web console.
  
  
• The Create Check window should now show. Definitions for each field can be found below under Configuration Definitions.
  
  Ensure the Check Type is set to Single URL Check.
  
  
  
  
• Click Edit next to Check Response Strings to add checks for words, phrases or any strings that should or should not be found in the response body. Use the Add button to add more conditions as necessary, and the X button to remove any if needed. Click Close to return to the main Create Check form.
  
  
  
  
• Click Show next to Additional Configuration to define more advanced options about how the Check URL request is formed such as custom headers, request body and proxies to use. Once changes are made click OK to return to the Create Check form.
  
  
• Click Save.
  
  
• You should now see confirmation that the Check was successfully created in the bottom right notification area in the web console. If the check was created in the Dashboard then it will shortly appear under the Check Group it was assigned too.
  
  Newly created checks will initially show with as a successful check in colour on the dashboard until it's first run, but will have its status show as either empty or a '-'.

Amending a URL Check

As with all checks, URL checks can be managed through the API or using Terraform. See the relevant documentation for each for adding URL checks through these. This guide will show how to amend a URL check through the web console.

• Login to Web Console and select Checks from the main menu.
  
  
  
  
• Click Actions next to the Check you want to edit, and then click Edit.
  
  The list of checks shown can be filtered using the search bar to by the checks name, description, hostname or linked Check Group or App Group names.
  
  
• The Edit Check window should now show. Definitions for each field can be found below under Configuration Definitions.
  
  Ensure the Check Type is set to Single URL Check.
  
  
  
  
• Click Edit next to Check Response Strings to add checks for words, phrases or any strings that should or should not be found in the response body. Use the Add button to add more conditions as necessary, and the X button to remove any if needed. Click Close to return to the main Create Check form.
  
  
  
  
• Click Show next to Additional Configuration to define more advanced options about how the Check URL request is formed such as custom headers, request body and proxies to use. Once changes are made click OK to return to the Create Check form.
  
  
• Click Save.
  
  
• Confirmation the check was successfully updated should be shown in the bottom right notification area of the web console. Any checks in flight will continue to use the previous configuration.

Removing URL Checks

• Login to Web Console and select Checks from the main menu.
  
  
  
  
• Click Actions next to the Check you want to edit, and then click Remove.
  
  The list of checks shown can be filtered using the search bar to by the checks name, description, hostname or linked Check Group or App Group names.
  
  
• Click Remove on the Remove Check conformation prompt.
  
  
• Confirmation the check was successfully deleted should show in the bottom right notification area of the web console. Checks in flight may still try and complete so could still produce an alert shortly after deletion. All result history of the check will also be removed.

Configuration Definitions

Name	Description
Name	Provide a name to define what this check is monitoring.
Description	Space to provide a longer description of what the check is monitoring.
Check Type	The type of check this is. This should be set to Single URL Check.
Check Host / Host Group	The Check Host or Host Group to run this check on.
Hostname	The hostname to lookup as part of this check.
Check Group	The Check Group to assign this check to, which will determine which dashboard it will be shown in.
Enabled	A toggle to enable or disable this check from running.
Maintenance Override	A toggle to manually put the check into maintenance mode. This allows the check to continue running and storing results, but failures will not produce any alerts or notifications, and do not get counted in some reports.
Check Frequency	The minimum frequency in seconds that this check should be run.
Alert Trigger Failure Count	The number of successive failed checks that should occur before an alert or notification is fired.
Result Retention (days)	The number of days that the history of results for this check should be retained for.
Check URL	The URL to check, including the protocol, such as https://myservice.com/healthcheck.
Request Method	The request method to use when calling the given Check URL.
Warning Response Time	If the full request completes in more than the given number of milliseconds defined here then the a warning will be produced.
Alert Response Time	If the full request completes in more than the given number of milliseconds defined here then the check will count as failed and produce an alert.
Response Timeout	The number of milliseconds to wait for the request to the Check URL to complete before giving up. This is separate to the Alert Response Time to allow the response time still to be measured above the alert threshold.
Expected Response Code	The response code the Check URL should return for a successful check.
Check Response Strings	Click Edit to add/remove from the list of text that the response to the Check URL should or should not contain.
Additional Configuration	Additional configuration for this check can be found by clicking Show. This configuration is defined below under Additional Configuration.

Additional Configuration

Name	Description
Request Headers	Click Edit to add/remove requests headers sent to the given Check URL.
Proxy Host	Select a Proxy Host to proxy requests to the given Check URL through.
Request Body	The request body to send to the given Check URL.
Allow Redirects	Toggle this on to allow redirect responses to be followed when calling the Check URL, or toggle off to only accept the first response given when calling the Check URL.
Expected Addresses	The list of IP addresses that the given hostname in the Check URL should resolve to. If it resolves to an address outside of this list then the check will fail.