Heartbeat Monitoring

backupctl supports heartbeat monitoring — a passive failure detection mechanism that complements the active notification system. After each backup, a heartbeat ping is sent to an external monitoring service. If the ping stops arriving (crashed container, stuck cron, hung process), the monitoring service detects the silence and fires its own alerts.

The architecture is generic: the HeartbeatMonitorPort defines the contract, and adapters implement it for specific services. Currently, Uptime Kuma push monitors are supported. Adding other services (Healthchecks.io, Betterstack, etc.) requires only a new adapter — no changes to the backup flow or configuration structure.

How It Works

backupctl                          Monitoring Service
┌─────────────┐                   ┌─────────────┐
│ Backup runs │── success ──────→ │ status=up   │ → Dashboard green
│             │                   │             │
│ Backup fails│── failure ──────→ │ status=down │ → Dashboard red, alert fires
│             │                   │             │
│ No backup   │── (no ping) ───→ │ timeout     │ → Dashboard red, alert fires
│ (crash/hang)│                   │             │
└─────────────┘                   └─────────────┘

Success: sends status=up with backup duration
Failure: sends status=down immediately — no waiting for timeout
Silent failure: no ping arrives, the monitoring service detects the missing heartbeat after the configured interval

This is separate from backupctl's notification system (Slack, Email, Webhook). The two complement each other:

System	When it fires	Use case
backupctl notifications	On every backup event	Detailed backup results, errors, duration
Heartbeat monitoring	When heartbeat is missing or DOWN	Silent failure detection (dead container, stuck cron)

Configuration

Environment Variables

Add to your .env:

env

UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL=https://kuma.example.com

Variable	Required	Default	Description
`UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL`	Only if any project uses `monitor.type: uptime-kuma`	—	Base URL of your Uptime Kuma instance

Project YAML

Add a monitor block to any project in config/projects.yml:

yaml

projects:
  - name: vinsware
    cron: '0 0 * * *'
    # ... existing config ...
    monitor:
      type: uptime-kuma
      config:
        push_token: YOUR_PUSH_TOKEN

Field	Type	Required	Description
`monitor.type`	string	yes	Monitor type (`uptime-kuma`)
`monitor.config.push_token`	string	yes	Push token from the monitoring service

The monitor block is optional and independent of notification. Projects without it skip the heartbeat step entirely.

Validation

backupctl config validate checks:

If monitor.type is uptime-kuma, UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL must be set in .env
If monitor.type is uptime-kuma, config.push_token must be present

Uptime Kuma Setup

backupctl does not bundle or manage Uptime Kuma. You run Kuma on your own infrastructure — a dedicated server, a separate Docker host, or any other setup. backupctl only needs the base URL and a push token per project.

Create Push Monitors

For each project you want to monitor:

Open your Uptime Kuma dashboard
Click Add New Monitor
Set Monitor Type to Push
Set Friendly Name (e.g., vinsware-backup)
Set Heartbeat Interval to match your backup schedule (see Recommended Intervals)
Set Retries to 0 (backupctl sends status=down on failure — no need for Kuma to retry)
Click Save
Copy the Push Token — the last segment of the push URL (e.g., if the URL is https://kuma.example.com/api/push/abcd1234, the token is abcd1234)

Recommended Intervals

Set the heartbeat interval to match your project's cron schedule plus a grace period for backup duration variability.

Cron Schedule	Description	Heartbeat Interval	Grace Period
`0 0 * * *`	Daily at midnight	86400s (24h)	3600s (1h)
`0 /6 * *`	Every 6 hours	21600s (6h)	1800s (30m)
`0 /12 * *`	Every 12 hours	43200s (12h)	3600s (1h)
`30 1 * * *`	Daily at 01:30	86400s (24h)	3600s (1h)

Why Retries = 0? backupctl actively sends status=down on backup failure, so Kuma doesn't need to wait and retry — the failure is reported immediately.

Kuma Notifications

Configure Kuma's own notification channels (Slack, Email, Telegram, Discord, etc.) in its web UI under Settings → Notifications. These fire when a push monitor goes DOWN — either from an explicit status=down ping or from a missing heartbeat.

Heartbeat Details

On Success

GET /api/push/{token}?status=up&msg=OK - 3m 12s&ping=192000

status=up — monitor shows green
msg — human-readable duration (truncated to 200 chars)
ping — raw duration in milliseconds

On Failure

GET /api/push/{token}?status=down&msg=FAIL - sync: connection timeout&ping=342000

status=down — monitor shows red immediately
msg — failure stage and error (truncated to 200 chars)
ping — time until failure in milliseconds

Placement in Backup Flow

The heartbeat is the last step before lock release:

 0.  Lock acquire
 0b. Audit startRun
 1.  Notify started
 2.  Pre-hook
 3.  Dump
 4.  Verify
 5.  Encrypt
 6.  Sync
 7.  Prune
 8.  Cleanup
 9.  Post-hook
10.  Audit finishRun
11.  Notify success/failure
12.  Heartbeat ping          ← HERE
13.  Lock release

Failure Behavior

Heartbeat failure is logged but never affects backup status or exit code
No fallback writer for heartbeat — if the monitoring service is down, the missed heartbeat itself is the detection signal
Dry runs (--dry-run) skip the heartbeat entirely
run --all sends a separate heartbeat per project

Health Check

When UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL is configured, the health command verifies connectivity:

bash

backupctl health

System healthy

  ✓ Audit DB
  ✓ Disk space (42 GB free)
  ✓ SSH connection
  ✓ SSH auth
  ✓ Restic repos
  ✓ Uptime Kuma
  Uptime: 2h 15m

The HTTP health endpoint also includes Kuma status when configured.

Testing

Validate config: backupctl config validate
Check connectivity: backupctl health — confirms backupctl can reach your Kuma instance
Run a real backup: backupctl run <project> — --dry-run skips heartbeat, so use a real run
Check Kuma dashboard: the push monitor should turn green with the backup duration shown
Test failure path: temporarily break something (e.g., wrong database.host), run again — the monitor should turn red immediately

Troubleshooting

Monitor Shows No Heartbeat

Check UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL is set in .env and the URL is reachable from the backupctl container
Run backupctl health to verify connectivity
Verify the push token matches what's in Kuma
Check logs: docker logs backupctl 2>&1 | grep -i heartbeat

Monitor Shows DOWN But Backup Succeeded

The heartbeat interval in Kuma may be too short for your backup duration — increase the grace period
Check if UPTIME_KUMA_BASE_URL resolves from within the backupctl container (DNS, firewall, network)

Network Connectivity

If backupctl runs in Docker and Kuma is on a separate host, ensure the backupctl container can reach Kuma's URL. This may require:

Exposing Kuma on a routable address (not localhost)
Configuring Docker network settings or extra_hosts
Opening firewall rules for the Kuma port

What's Next

Configure notifications — Configuration covers Slack, Email, and Webhook notification setup
Understand the backup flow — Backup Flow explains the full orchestration pipeline
Add more adapters — Adding Adapters covers extending backupctl with new database engines, notifiers, or monitoring backends

Heartbeat Monitoring ​

How It Works ​

Configuration ​

Environment Variables ​

Project YAML ​

Validation ​

Uptime Kuma Setup ​

Create Push Monitors ​

Recommended Intervals ​

Kuma Notifications ​

Heartbeat Details ​

On Success ​

On Failure ​

Placement in Backup Flow ​

Failure Behavior ​

Health Check ​

Testing ​

Troubleshooting ​

Monitor Shows No Heartbeat ​

Monitor Shows DOWN But Backup Succeeded ​

Network Connectivity ​

What's Next ​