How to create a Health Check in Traffic Director?

Health Check tests the performance of your server to ensure it’s online. Health Check allows us to determine the status of the server so that the traffic director can switch to the available server if the primary goes offline.

Health Check can only be enabled for A, AAAA, CNAME, and ANAME records with Failover or Round Robin with Failover mode.

Follow the steps to create a Health Check in the traffic director

  • Login to 5centsCDN control panel.
  • Go to Traffic Director.

  • Click the Manage button of your domain.

  • On the redirected page, you can find all the records.
  • You can also create new records here. for example, click here
  • Click the rule inside an A/AAAA/CNAME or ANAME record.

  • The health check can only be enabled in Failover or Round Robin with Failover mode. So you have to select any one of these modes in the “Rule Mode” option.
  • If you have selected the Failover mode then choose the appropriate Failover mode.

  • You can add all the IP addresses/Hostname(maximum of 10 IPs or Hostnames).
  • Click the settings icon nearest to the IP/Hostname to create a new health check.

  • Configure the following settings to create a health check for the particular hostname/IP.
    •  Click Add New

    • Name: Provide a name to identify the health check.

    • IP address: Add the IP address of the server.
    • Monitoring Region: You can select the monitoring region as Global, Europe, or North America. The traffic director will check the health of the server from the specified region.

    • Monitoring Period: You can select the monitoring period. Assuming a 30-second interval is set, the health check will take place every 30-second interval.

    • Number of checks to consider up/down: Specify the number of checks to determine whether the server is UP or Down. To switch quickly to the available server, we recommend setting smaller values here.

    • Monitoring Type: You can use the following monitoring type
      • Ping(15% threshold)
      • Ping(25% threshold)
      • Ping(50% threshold)
      • HTTP
      • HTTPS
      • HTTP Custom String
      • HTTPS custom String
      • TCP
      • UDP
      • DNS
      • Heartbeat

  • Click the CREATE button.
  • You can click the SET button to apply the health check to the IP address or Hostname.

Do the same step for all the IPs/Hostname configured in the failover mode and save the rule to reflect the changes

If you use the same IP address or Hostname in different records or domains, no need to create a separate Health Check. You can simply apply this Health Check to the IP or hostname.

How to view Health Check statistics?

To check the statistics of a Health Check follow the steps,

  • Go to Traffic Director
  • Click the Manage button of your domain.

  • In the above image, you see the status of the health check linked to this domain.
  • Click the HEALTH CHECKS button at the top right to get detailed information.

  • On the redirect page, all the health check profiles are listed. you can click the profile to see the details.

  • You can also edit the configurations here.
  • Click the Log button to view the statistics.

  • You will be redirected to a new page. There are 2 options available Changes and History.
  • The Changes section shows the details of the UP and Down of your server. This page is only updated if any event happens. You can click the corresponding event to view the detailed statistics.

  • The history option allows you to view the current status of the server from the different regions based on the Monitoring Period. A sample screenshot is attached below