Keep Your Background Processes Under Control
Not every service can be checked from the outside. Cronjobs, batch processes and scheduled tasks run in the background – and often fail silently. With live24h’s heartbeat monitoring, you can keep an eye on these processes too.
The Concept: Simple and Reliable
Instead of checking your service from the outside, your process sends a signal (“heartbeat”) to live24h. If the signal does not arrive, you get notified.
# Example: Cronjob with heartbeat
0 * * * * /usr/bin/backup.sh && curl -s https://hb.live24h.eu/abc123
Typical Use Cases
- Database backups: Is the nightly backup running reliably?
- Data imports: Was the daily import completed successfully?
- Queue workers: Are your background jobs still running?
- Cron tasks: Did the scheduled task execute?
- ETL pipelines: Did all data transformations complete?
- IoT and edge devices: Are all devices checking in as expected?
Flexible Time Windows and Grace Period
Define an expected interval for each heartbeat. If the next heartbeat does not arrive within the time window plus grace period, you are notified immediately.
- Configurable from every minute to weekly
- Grace period: Tolerance for slightly delayed jobs (e.g. 5 minutes)
- Timezone support: Correct evaluation regardless of server location
- Run history: Last 1,000 signals with duration and exit code (when passed via a wrapper script)
Start Ping and Exit Code (Optional)
Call the heartbeat at the start AND end of the job to pass duration and exit code. This way you detect not only failed jobs, but also jobs that run too long.
curl -s https://hb.live24h.eu/abc123/start
./my-job.sh
curl -s "https://hb.live24h.eu/abc123/$?"
Availability by Plan
| Feature | Free | Pro | Business | Agency | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heartbeat checks | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Configurable grace period | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Start/end ping + exit code | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Run history 1,000 signals | – | – | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Integration in Minutes
Integration is straightforward: a single HTTP request at the end of your process is all it takes. Compatible with any programming language and any operating system.
Next Steps
- Combine heartbeats with uptime checks for full-stack coverage
- React to failures via alerting
- Plans and limits on the pricing page