What is an Uptime Test?

Uptime Tests at StatusCake come in different forms, but they all share the same base function – ensuring that your website or server is up and running without errors.

There are currently 8 different varieties of Uptime test, we will go through each one and it’s functions and advantages below:

HTTP type tests

HTTP type Uptime Tests are very much the standard option, and  this will be the test type that you’d usually want to add in order to keep an eye on a websites’ uptime. As well as alerting on downtime and errors, these tests can also spend special data as POST, and custom headers and user agents can be used. Other features are also present, such as the ability to define a required Final URL, or match a string in the page source.

HEAD type tests

These work much like the HTTP type tests, however instead of a GET request a HEAD type request will be sent – this means a faster check time and can often be used when you want to ignore other aspects of the page in your monitoring that would usually be found outside the head tags in the source.

TCP type tests

This test type allows you to send a TCP type connection to the host and port of your choosing. Commonly used for checking an arbitrary port on a remote server.

DNS type tests

DNS tests allow you to ensure that an “Expected IP” aligns and directs to a defined hostname, and that the system which directs visitors from your domain to  your actual server is working properly. Google’s DNS servers are used for verification here, but if you wish you can define custom DNS servers to carry out the checks within the  tests’ settings.

SMTP type tests

The SMTP type uptime tests are for the purpose of checking whether your mail server is functioning correctly in terms of sending emails. A test email will be sent and you will be alerted to any problems that occur during the process.

SSH type tests

With the SSH test type it’s possible to login and monitor the uptime of servers through SSH and SFTP type connections, using the required authentication details you can ensure that your services are accessible by staff at all times.

PING type tests

PING tests send a ICMP ping to an IP. This can be a great way of testing routers or a basic way of testing a server is responding.

PUSH type tests

PUSH tests are like reverse testing. Instead of our servers checking your site is up, your servers ping us to say they are, this can be useful for things like cron job validation. You are provided with a link on test creation which should be hit by the server once per your defined time span to demonstrate the status.

 

 

Related Articles