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It is already possible to monitor websites that require “HTTP basic auth” with Uptime Robot by providing login details.
However, it was not possible to monitor authentication-required websites without providing the auth credentials as Uptime Robot was considering any HTTP 401 response as “down”.
A logic update is applied today that will count HTTP 401 as:
- “up” if no authentication info is provided
- “down” if authentication info in provided
Simply, you can now monitor auth-required websites without providing these details.
3 replies on “Logic Update For Monitoring Authentication-Required Websites”
Hey guys,
I love your service and this update is a step in the right direction but I have a different suggestion that you could implement.
By putting this type of logic into your app, you’re not making yourself any favor. First of all, there will be similar dilemmas in the future that you’ll have to implement and it will just make the code bloated. You’re also hiding the logic away from user. Not everyone is going to read this blog and might be unpleasantly surprised when the monitor doesn’t work the way he expects.
A better solution would be to just allow the user to enter the expected return values. This way everyone gets exactly the behavior configured and your code remains simple.
I would suggest the following workflow to keep things simple and understandable for newbie users:
1) User creates new monitor
2) User performs a ‘test monitor’ action which runs the check once
3) The results arrive and users sees the return code produced by the server
4) User enters the code in ‘Expected return codes’ field and maybe even adds an additional one if he expects it.
Uptimerobot would be much more powerful this way.
That’s a very good suggestion and we see your point completely.
Just one thing that, it adds an extra step while creating monitors and that adds a little complexity (which we’d love to keep the process as simple as possible).
But, adding an “option” to customize the HTTP statuses can be a solution. So, any user not preferring the default options can override the settings.
P.S. But, noted the suggestion and will definitely be discussed.
Please let me tell you that Uptime Robot is used by expert IT and Sys admins, so don’t worry about complexity as we’re already very familiar with setting up extremely complex systems and adding such “little” step is no harm to us.