⏰ Cron Job Monitoring

The most common use for heartbeats is monitoring cron jobs. Here's how to add monitoring to your crons.

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🐧 Linux Cron

Basic Pattern

# Your existing cron
0 2 * * * /path/to/backup.sh

# With Monitron heartbeat
0 2 * * * /path/to/backup.sh && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN

With Failure Reporting

0 2 * * * /path/to/backup.sh && curl -fsS https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN || curl -fsS -X POST https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN/fail

This sends a success ping if the script exits 0, or a failure report if it exits non-zero.

curl Flags Explained

Flag	Meaning
-f	Fail silently on HTTP errors
-s	Silent mode (no progress bar)
-S	Show errors even in silent mode
--retry 3	Retry up to 3 times on failure

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🪟 Windows Task Scheduler

Add this to the end of your scheduled task's script:

PowerShell

# At the end of your script
try {
    # Your job logic here
    Do-Something

    # Report success
    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN" -Method GET
} catch {
    # Report failure
    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN/fail" -Method POST
    throw  # Re-throw so Task Scheduler sees the failure
}

Batch File

your-script.exe
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (
    curl -fsS https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN
) ELSE (
    curl -fsS -X POST https://your-monitron.com/heartbeat/TOKEN/fail
)