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Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

upptime.js.org

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#21

I like using GitHub Actions for small automation tasks like this as well, but I'm curious what the execution time is for each of these runs. GH Actions has been reliable for me, but it tends to be rather slow due to the architecture. Also I feel like this would chew up all my build mins pretty quick (this is 8000+ runs/month). Side note, I find it hilarious how many sites use those generic "modern" illustrations whic…

Guilty as charged, as I've used those illustrations for a few personal projects as well.

For anyone interested, you can generate custom variations of them here and see more from work from the original artists:

https://blush.design/collections

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#22
post #15
post #4

Abusing version control and CI service as database sounds like a way for ruining it for open source projects that actually need it. The recent Travis thing didn't happen without reason.

I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They run all of Azure, after all. A small price to pay, it seems, to lock more people into GitHub/GitHub Actions. We're talking pennies, here.

> I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage.

They probably don't care about one person doing this, but if tens of thousands of repositories start doing this it becomes a problem.

> They run all of Azure, after all.

They get paid for that.

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "spin up" which in my mind implies a whole VM. I think surely actions are just run in sort of a container of some sort like a lambda. I would think it should be rather efficient to run a github action.

Yes and no. Depends on tenancy requirements. I know with docker and other common Linux container strategies you would want to keep each tenant on their own VM. A container isn’t safe enough. So if this is your org’s only action. Then you’re probably spinning up a VM. If you have other options. You’re probably not adding any overhead. (Edit: grammar)

You can also use more secure containarization technologies than native docker, like gVisor, to achieve both lightness and isolation.

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#24
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this - it sounds like a massive waste to spin up a Github Actions job in order to trigger a basic request every 5 minutes, 300 times a day. Why not just use a dedicated uptime service with a free tier? I've been using UptimeRobot [1] in the past - they give you 50 free checks at the same refresh rate of 5 minutes. [1] https://uptimerobot.com/

You say "spin up" which in my mind implies a whole VM. I think surely actions are just run in sort of a container of some sort like a lambda. I would think it should be rather efficient to run a github action.

They support Linux, Windows, and macOS. Surely that cannot be covered just with containers. On Linux, they allow workflows with a large number of different containers involved and I don't think GH would be happy to debug all Docker-inside-Docker problems. So, I guess there is a control algorithm that keeps up to N (100?) VMs spinned up in a free VM pool with the KPI of VM allocation from the pool to be under X s (5?).

Edit: from https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/actions/crea... "Actions can run directly on a machine or in a Docker container".

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They run all of Azure, after all. A small price to pay, it seems, to lock more people into GitHub/GitHub Actions. We're talking pennies, here.

> I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They probably don't care about one person doing this, but if tens of thousands of repositories start doing this it becomes a problem. > They run all of Azure, after all. They get paid for that.

They will for this too. Github actions aren't free. They just have a generous free tier.

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They run all of Azure, after all. A small price to pay, it seems, to lock more people into GitHub/GitHub Actions. We're talking pennies, here.

> I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They probably don't care about one person doing this, but if tens of thousands of repositories start doing this it becomes a problem. > They run all of Azure, after all. They get paid for that.

[deleted]

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#28
post #15
post #4

Abusing version control and CI service as database sounds like a way for ruining it for open source projects that actually need it. The recent Travis thing didn't happen without reason.

I doubt Microsoft (GitHub's owner) cares that much about such tiny usage. They run all of Azure, after all. A small price to pay, it seems, to lock more people into GitHub/GitHub Actions. We're talking pennies, here.

Yeah, MS has been pretty vague so far on gha usage. Basically “have fun; don’t go crazy”. I imagine they are waiting and collecting more data before opting to impose any specific usage constraints.

Re: Upptime – GitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page

#29
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this - it sounds like a massive waste to spin up a Github Actions job in order to trigger a basic request every 5 minutes, 300 times a day. Why not just use a dedicated uptime service with a free tier? I've been using UptimeRobot [1] in the past - they give you 50 free checks at the same refresh rate of 5 minutes. [1] https://uptimerobot.com/

You say "spin up" which in my mind implies a whole VM. I think surely actions are just run in sort of a container of some sort like a lambda. I would think it should be rather efficient to run a github action.

I'm pretty sure GitHub actions do use a whole (though probably lightweight) VM. And I think AWS lamdas do as well, or at least used to.
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