I'm managing a small-business network running pfSense and need a simple, low-resource monitor for a few internal servers. Ideally, it would periodically check whether each device responds to ping or a specific port and send an email or other notification when something goes down.
An external uptime service already monitors the firewall, but the servers use private addresses and aren't directly reachable from the internet. I considered running something like Zabbix or another monitoring tool on a Raspberry Pi, but that raises the question of how to monitor the monitor if the firewall or local network fails. A pfSense package would be convenient, although the built-in gateway monitoring doesn't seem designed for this use. What lightweight solutions work well for this kind of setup, especially on a UPS-powered Raspberry Pi?
4 Answers
Uptime Kuma is a good fit for a small setup. It can monitor ping, TCP ports, HTTP services, and more, and it runs easily in a lightweight container or on a Raspberry Pi. For local-only services, host it inside the network and use an external notification or heartbeat service so you still learn about a complete site outage.
The cleanest design is to separate local monitoring from site-outage monitoring. Run a small monitor locally to check the internal servers, then have it send a periodic heartbeat to an external service. If the heartbeat stops, the external service alerts you. That covers both a failed server and a failed firewall or internet connection, without needing a second system on-site to watch the first one.
LibreNMS can be configured for basic reachability checks without using all of its more advanced monitoring features. It’s worth considering if you may eventually want graphs, device statistics, or SNMP monitoring, but it may be more than you need for a few ping checks.
A small cloud function or scheduled external check can monitor the firewall itself and notify you by email or SMS when it stops responding. Keep the Raspberry Pi for internal checks, and use the external check as the independent watcher. These simple checks generally cost very little at small intervals.
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