Jul 01, 2024 · Homelab / Beginner · ~2 MIN READ

Monitor Your Home Lab with Uptime Kuma

Know when core homelab services fail before someone complains — HTTP, TCP, ping, DNS, and Docker monitors with alerting.

Who This Is For

Beginner.

Think of it like a smoke detector for your services. You don’t want to find out something’s on fire because a family member complained the internet’s down, you want to know the second smoke appears.

What You’ll Build

Five monitored services and one tested alert.

Prerequisites

Docker host with Docker Compose

Deploy Uptime Kuma

$ services:
$   uptime-kuma:
$     image: louislam/uptime-kuma:1
$     ports:
$       - "3001:3001"
$     volumes:
$       - ./data:/app/data
$     restart: unless-stopped

Monitor Types

HTTP/HTTPS
TCP port
Ping
DNS
Docker container
Push monitor (for external scripts to report in)

Add Checks For

Router
Reverse proxy
Key self-hosted services (Nextcloud, Vaultwarden, Immich, etc.)
NAS
Internet connectivity itself

Configure Expected Status Codes

Set the exact expected HTTP status per monitor to avoid false positives from services that return non-200 codes normally (e.g. a redirect).

Notification Channels

Email
Discord
Telegram
Generic webhook

Create a Status Page

Build an internal status page for your own reference; only make one public if that’s genuinely appropriate for your use case.

Security & Backup Notes

Monitoring from inside the same network as the monitored service will miss a real WAN outage, add at least one external check if uptime for remote users matters

Troubleshooting

Monitoring from inside the network misses WAN failure, add an external monitor (a free tier of a public status service, or a friend’s server) for true outside visibility
TLS certificate errors, Uptime Kuma flags cert problems by default; check expiry and chain
Service returns 200 but is actually unusable, switch that monitor to check specific content or an API health endpoint instead of just status code
Notifications fail due to SMTP config, test the SMTP settings independently before assuming Uptime Kuma is broken

Lab Finish Line