Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#1

Post by gorkemcetin » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

We just released Checkmate 2.0 (formerly BlueWave Uptime). Originally designed as a simple uptime manager, Checkmate has evolved into an infrastructure monitoring tool.

With the addition of our lightweight Go-based server agent (Capture) it's possible to monitor key metrics like CPU, RAM, and disk usage across remote servers.

We’re now exploring new features, including enhanced notifications, advanced configuration options, DNS monitoring, and status pages (which are almost ready to launch btw). There are no plans for synthetic monitoring, APM, log management, traces etc. It'll hopefully stay as small as possible.

It's still the early days for Checkmate. The project gained some traction with 31 contributors and this version itself had 13 contributors.

- Server: https://github.com/bluewave-labs/checkmate

- Agent: https://github.com/bluewave-labs/capture

- Demo: https://checkmate-demo.bluewavelabs.ca/ (The username is uptimedemo@demo.com and the password is Demouser1! )

Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application
github.com

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#2

Post by johng » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 4:40 AM UTC

Upvoted, looks neat. This is potentially a huge security issue though so I'd love to see more history/reviews before running this.

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#3

Post by KetoManx64 » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

johng wrote: post #2

Upvoted, looks neat. This is potentially a huge security issue though so I'd love to see more history/reviews before running this.

What makes this a security issue?

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#4

Post by gorkemcetin » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

johng wrote: post #2

Upvoted, looks neat. This is potentially a huge security issue though so I'd love to see more history/reviews before running this.

Would love to learn more about this. Could you please share some more information?

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#5

Post by johng » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

KetoManx64 wrote: post #3

johng wrote: post #2

Upvoted, looks neat. This is potentially a huge security issue though so I'd love to see more history/reviews before running this.

What makes this a security issue?

Running an agent on every server that reports back to the master server is a huge security vector.

Running a daemon on a server that scrapes data is also a security vector.

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#6

Post by cweagans » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 8:37 PM UTC

At risk of sounding like the dropbox/rsync guy, is this materially different from what you can accomplish with Prometheus, the Blackbox exporter, (optionally) the node exporter, and Grafana?

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#7

Post by gorkemcetin » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

johng wrote: post #5

KetoManx64 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes this a security issue?

Running an agent on every server that reports back to the master server is a huge security vector. Running a daemon on a server that scrapes data is also a security vector.

How would you solve the problem of collecting data from servers?

Re: Show HN: Checkmate, a server and infrastructure monitoring application

#8

Post by KetoManx64 » Sat, Dec 07, 2024, 4:43 AM UTC

johng wrote: post #5

KetoManx64 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes this a security issue?

Running an agent on every server that reports back to the master server is a huge security vector. Running a daemon on a server that scrapes data is also a security vector.

Zabbix, Nagios, and a whole suite of other very widely used IT monitoring tools do this. What makes this project more of a security issue?