oroe
Sign in Start with Oroe
/

Create an uptime monitor

Set up a check that tells you when a website, port or domain stops responding.

Before you start

Have the address you want to watch ready. That might be a web address like https://example.com, a server and port like example.com:3306, or just a domain name.

Create the monitor

  1. Open https://pinwatch.oroe.ai/monitors.
  2. Select Create Monitor. You’ll land on Create Uptime Monitor.
  3. Under Monitor Type, pick one:
    • HTTP(S) for a website or web address.
    • TCP Port for a service that listens on a port, such as a database or mail server.
    • DNS to check that a domain name still resolves.
  4. Under Basic Information, fill in Monitor Name. Pick something you’ll recognise in an alert, like “Production Website”.
  5. Fill in the address field. Its label changes with the type you picked:
    • URL for HTTP(S), for example https://example.com.
    • Host:Port for TCP Port, for example example.com:3306.
    • Domain for DNS, for example example.com.
  6. Choose a Check Interval: 1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min or 1 hour. 5 min is selected by default.
  7. Under Alert Notifications, enter the Email Address that should hear about problems.
  8. Select Create Monitor.

You’ll see “Monitor created successfully!” and return to the dashboard. The new monitor shows Never checked until its first check runs.

Good to know The email address you enter here is also saved as your account’s alert address in Notification Settings. If you change it here, you change it there too. See Set up email alerts.

Optional: advanced settings for web checks

Open Advanced Settings at the bottom of the form if the page you’re watching needs something extra.

  • Custom Headers (JSON) lets you send your own HTTP headers. Enter them as a JSON object, for example {"User-Agent": "PinWatch/1.0"}. If the JSON isn’t valid, you’ll see “Invalid JSON in headers field” and nothing is saved until you fix it.
  • Basic Auth Username and Basic Auth Password let PinWatch get past a simple password prompt. Fill in both or neither.

What counts as “down”

Type Up when Down when
HTTP(S) The address answers with a status below 400 It answers with 400 or higher, times out, can’t be reached, or its security certificate is invalid or expired
TCP Port A connection to the port opens The connection is refused or times out
DNS The domain resolves The domain doesn’t resolve

A few more details worth knowing:

  • A web check waits up to 30 seconds for an answer. If the connection fails for a passing reason, PinWatch tries once more after 5 seconds before calling it a failure.
  • Redirects are followed, up to 5 hops.
  • A bad or expired HTTPS certificate counts as down. Your visitors would see a warning, so PinWatch treats it as an outage.
  • If you leave the port off a TCP Port address, PinWatch uses port 80.

Note PinWatch only checks public addresses on the internet. Addresses on a private network, such as 192.168.x.x or localhost, are refused and the monitor will show as down.

Why a single failure doesn’t alert you

PinWatch waits for 3 failed checks in a row before it marks a monitor Down and emails you. One slow moment or network blip won’t wake you up. See Set up email alerts for exactly what gets sent.

Tip Pick the interval to match how fast you need to know. At 1 min, a real outage is confirmed in about three minutes. At 1 hour, it can take about three hours.

Was this helpful? Tell us what’s missing with the feedback button in any module, or email support@oroe.ai.