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This design checks the service from the network’s point of view rather than merely confirming that a process is running. It can detect failed HTTP responses, unacceptable content, slow responses, certificate problems, DNS failures, and other dependency issues when you add the appropriate probe modules.
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The components have distinct responsibilities:
- Blackbox Exporter performs an active probe against a target using a configured module. The official project description says: “The blackbox exporter allows blackbox probing of endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, ICMP and gRPC.”
- Prometheus scrapes the exporter, supplies the target URL as a query parameter, stores the returned metrics, and evaluates alerting rules.
- Alertmanager receives firing alerts from Prometheus, groups related events, suppresses duplicates, and delivers notifications through configured receivers.
The important distinction is that Prometheus is not probing your website directly. It requests /probe from Blackbox Exporter and tells the exporter which target to test. Relabeling changes the scrape address from the website to the exporter while preserving the website URL in the probe parameters and labels.
What a successful request looks like
- Prometheus starts a scrape for the
blackbox_httpjob. - The scrape uses
/probe?module=http_2xx&target=https://example.com/health. - Blackbox Exporter resolves the target, performs the HTTP request, and returns probe metrics.
- Prometheus stores values such as
probe_successand timing measurements. - If an alert expression remains true for its configured
for:period, Prometheus sends the alert to Alertmanager. - Alertmanager applies routing, grouping, inhibition, and receiver settings before notifying operators.
Prerequisites and deployment decisions
Run Blackbox Exporter as a network-reachable service, normally alongside Prometheus or in the same monitoring environment. The sample configuration below addresses it as blackbox-exporter:9115; change that address to the hostname and port reachable from your Prometheus server.
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- A running Prometheus server with permission to scrape the exporter.
- A Blackbox Exporter process with a readable module configuration.
- Network access from the exporter to every target it must test.
- Alertmanager reachable from Prometheus for alert delivery.
- Firewall and authentication rules that prevent untrusted users from invoking probes or changing monitoring configuration.
Choose the probe location deliberately
A probe made from your cluster answers “Can this environment reach the endpoint?” A probe outside the cluster answers “Can an external user reach it?” Those are different questions. An in-cluster probe can expose service-discovery, routing, or egress failures that a public monitor cannot see. An external vantage point can reveal broken DNS delegation, firewall policy, CDN behavior, or regional reachability.
If the distinction matters, run separate exporters or jobs and label them by location. Do not treat one vantage point as proof that every user can reach the service.
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Start with the built-in-style http_2xx pattern. The minimal blackbox.yml is:
modules:
http_2xx:
prober: httpThis tells the exporter to use its HTTP prober and accept the normal successful response class. A status-only check is a useful first test, but it may not represent application health for every endpoint.
When status-only checking is not enough
Extend a module when the endpoint requires a particular method, status, header, redirect policy, or response body. For example, a health endpoint that must return JSON can use a dedicated module with an expected status and a body rule:
modules:
http_health:
prober: http
http:
method: GET
valid_status_codes: [200]
headers:
Accept: application/json
fail_if_body_matches_regexp:
- "maintenance"The exact status, headers, and body expression belong to your application contract. A body match should fail only when the selected text truly indicates an unhealthy response; overly broad expressions create false pages.
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Use HTTPS targets to exercise TLS negotiation. If certificate rotation is a risk, add certificate-expiry coverage as a separate alert rather than relying only on the request’s success result. Use DNS, TCP, ICMP, or gRPC modules when an HTTP probe cannot isolate the dependency that is failing.
Configure Prometheus to probe real targets
Add a scrape job that points Prometheus at Blackbox Exporter’s /probe endpoint. The target list contains the real websites, not the exporter address:
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scrape_configs:
- job_name: blackbox_http
metrics_path: /probe
params:
module: [http_2xx]
static_configs:
- targets:
- https://example.com/health
- https://www.example.com/
relabel_configs:
- source_labels: [__address__]
target_label: __param_target
- source_labels: [__param_target]
target_label: instance
- target_label: __address__
replacement: blackbox-exporter:9115Why each relabeling rule is required
__param_targetbecomes the target query parameter consumed by Blackbox Exporter.- The
instancelabel is set to that same URL, so dashboards and alerts identify the website rather than the exporter. - The final rule changes the network destination of the scrape to the exporter service.
Without the first rule, the exporter receives its own address instead of the website. Without the second, alert labels can identify every failure as the same exporter instance. Without the third, Prometheus attempts to scrape the website directly at /probe.
Scrape the exporter itself
Keep a second job for the exporter’s own /metrics endpoint. This separates “the website failed” from “the probing service failed” and gives you exporter health metrics:
scrape_configs:
- job_name: blackbox_exporter
static_configs:
- targets:
- blackbox-exporter:9115If this job fails, a missing probe result may be caused by the exporter, its network path, or its configuration rather than by every monitored endpoint simultaneously.
Validate the configuration before enabling alerts
Validate the Prometheus and Blackbox Exporter configuration with the validation commands supplied by the versions you run before reloading either service. A syntactically valid file can still contain an unreachable exporter address, an invalid module, or a target that the exporter cannot resolve.
Probe directly
Request a probe URL from a host that can reach the exporter:
/probe?target=https://example.com&module=http_2xxInspect the response for probe_success and the timing metrics. A value of probe_success equal to 1 indicates that the configured probe succeeded; 0 indicates failure. Check the exporter log and the returned probe diagnostics when the result is unexpected.
Check the Prometheus target page
- Open Prometheus’s Targets page.
- Confirm that the
blackbox_httptarget is listed as up. This status describes Prometheus’s connection to the exporter, not the website’s health. - Open the target’s endpoint or query details and verify that the target URL and module are present.
- Query
probe_successand group the result byinstanceto confirm that every website has its own series.
Write alerts that tolerate transient failures
Alert on probe_success == 0, but require the condition to persist. A single timeout, deploy, or temporary packet loss should not automatically wake someone unless the endpoint’s business impact justifies it.
groups:
- name: blackbox
rules:
- alert: EndpointDown
expr: probe_success == 0
for: 5m
labels:
severity: critical
annotations:
summary: "HTTP endpoint is not responding"
description: "The configured black-box probe has failed for more than five minutes."The five-minute window is an example, not a universal standard. Set for: from the endpoint’s normal behavior, scrape interval, recovery time, and the cost of a false page. A short window detects outages quickly but is more sensitive to transient failures. A longer window reduces noise but delays notification.
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Alert on slowness separately
A website can return a valid response while being too slow for users. Add a second rule against the exporter’s probe-duration metric and select a threshold that reflects the endpoint’s service objective. Keep the latency condition separate from the availability condition so operators can distinguish “down” from “degraded.” Use another sustained period to avoid paging on one slow sample.
Cover certificate expiry
For HTTPS services, add certificate-expiry coverage using the exporter’s TLS certificate timing metrics. Alert before the certificate reaches its operational renewal deadline, not at the exact expiration instant. The warning period must leave enough time for your certificate issuance, deployment, and rollback procedures.
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Preserve useful labels
Keep the target URL in the instance label and add labels such as environment, region, or probe location when those dimensions affect response. Avoid putting secrets or high-cardinality request data into labels; every unique label set becomes a separate Prometheus time series.
Send firing alerts to Alertmanager
Configure Prometheus with Alertmanager’s network address, then let Alertmanager handle notification policy. Alertmanager can group multiple endpoint failures into one incident, route by severity or environment, and inhibit secondary symptoms when a shared dependency is already known to be down.
Design routes around operator decisions
- Critical availability: page the on-call path when a production endpoint remains down for the selected window.
- Latency degradation: send a lower-urgency notification when the endpoint is reachable but consistently slow.
- Certificate warning: notify the team responsible for renewal before expiration becomes an outage.
- Exporter failure: route exporter health alerts to the monitoring owner because they can hide all target failures.
Configure receivers with the notification systems your organization actually operates. Alertmanager’s HTTP traffic supports TLS and basic authentication; use those controls when the network is not fully trusted. Grouping should be based on labels that represent one incident, such as environment and probe location, rather than grouping every endpoint into one undifferentiated message.
Monitor more than an HTTP status code
Availability
probe_success is the primary availability signal. It answers whether the configured probe completed successfully, not whether every application feature works.
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Configure valid status codes, redirect handling, request headers, methods, and body matching when a generic 2xx response could hide an application failure. Keep these checks aligned with the endpoint’s documented health contract.
Latency and timeouts
Use probe duration and timeout-related metrics to detect slow responses. A timeout can indicate server saturation, a network path problem, DNS delay, or a dependency that is not returning. Compare the timing breakdown with application and network logs before assigning a cause.
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TLS
HTTPS probing exercises certificate validation and TLS negotiation. Certificate-expiry alerts provide a different signal: the service may work today while its certificate is approaching the renewal deadline.
Dependencies
Add DNS, TCP, ICMP, or gRPC probes when an HTTP check cannot identify the failing layer. A DNS probe can reveal name-resolution problems; a TCP probe can distinguish a closed port from an application error; an ICMP probe can expose basic reachability issues where permitted; and a gRPC probe can test a service that does not expose HTTP health semantics.
Timeouts, DNS, and probe frequency
Blackbox Exporter resolves target hostnames for each probe and does not cache DNS results. When many names are probed frequently, a nearby caching resolver can reduce DNS load and make resolution behavior more predictable. This does not remove the need to monitor DNS itself.
The exporter timeout is derived from Prometheus’s scrape timeout and can also be limited in exporter configuration. Keep the scrape interval and timeout consistent with the response time you intend to measure. If the timeout is shorter than a normal response, the alert describes your monitoring settings rather than a real outage. If the interval is too aggressive for the number of targets, the resolver, exporter, and monitored services all receive unnecessary load.
Use a simple timing check
- Record the endpoint’s normal response-time range during ordinary traffic.
- Set a Prometheus scrape timeout longer than the slowest response you intend to count as successful.
- Set an alert threshold above normal variation but below the user-visible limit that matters.
- Keep enough interval between probes to avoid turning monitoring into a denial-of-service pattern.
- Recheck the timing after deployments, DNS changes, and network-policy changes.
Reload configuration safely
Blackbox Exporter supports configuration reload through its /-/reload endpoint or by sending SIGHUP. Validate the file before applying it, then perform a direct probe and inspect the exporter’s metrics after the reload.
- Write the module or target change to the configuration file.
- Run the configuration validator for your exporter and Prometheus versions.
- Reload Blackbox Exporter with
/-/reloadorSIGHUP. - Reload Prometheus after changing its scrape or rule files.
- Check exporter logs, Prometheus targets, and a direct
/proberequest. - Only then rely on the new alert route for production incidents.
Secure the monitoring endpoints
Prometheus, Blackbox Exporter, and Alertmanager expose HTTP endpoints that can reveal infrastructure details or trigger actions. Restrict them to the monitoring network and apply TLS and authentication where appropriate.
- Do not expose exporter probe endpoints publicly unless that exposure is intentional and protected.
- Limit who can access Prometheus and Alertmanager configuration and reload endpoints.
- Keep receiver credentials out of broadly editable files and templates.
- Review Alertmanager templates carefully: secrets can be exposed to anyone who is allowed to configure receivers.
- Use network policy or firewall rules so the exporter can reach only the destinations it needs.
Security controls should cover both inbound access to the monitoring stack and outbound access from the exporter. A compromised exporter with unrestricted egress can be abused to probe internal services.
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The Prometheus target is down
Verify the exporter hostname and port from the Prometheus host, confirm that the exporter process is listening, and check firewall or network-policy rules. This is an exporter scrape failure; it does not prove that the website is down.
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probe_success is zero
Run the direct probe and inspect its diagnostics. Check DNS resolution from the exporter host, TLS validation, redirects, response status, authentication requirements, and whether the target is reachable from that network location.
Every endpoint fails at once
Check the exporter’s own /metrics scrape, exporter logs, resolver health, and shared network paths. A common exporter, DNS resolver, or egress policy can produce a fleet-wide failure that is unrelated to the websites.
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The probe never finishes before timeout
Compare the Prometheus scrape timeout, exporter timeout limit, and endpoint response time. Inspect DNS and connection timing, then adjust the timeout or probe interval only after deciding what response time should count as healthy.
Alerts are noisy
Increase the sustained for: period, correct the endpoint’s status or body rules, and separate warning latency alerts from critical availability alerts. Check whether the probe location has intermittent DNS or network loss before weakening the alert globally.
Alerts never arrive
Confirm that Prometheus sees the rule as pending or firing, verify its Alertmanager connection, and inspect Alertmanager’s route matchers and receiver logs. Grouping and inhibition can intentionally delay or suppress notifications, so test those policies with a non-production receiver.
Compare implementation choices before expanding coverage
| Decision axis | Option A | Option B | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Probe vantage point | In-cluster exporter | External exporter | In-cluster checks expose internal routing and egress problems; external checks represent public reachability. |
| HTTP validation | Status-only | Content and certificate validation | Status-only checks are simpler; content and TLS checks catch more application and certificate failures but require careful contracts. |
| Alert timing | Short failure window | Longer sustained window | Short windows reduce detection delay; longer windows tolerate transient failures and reduce false pages. |
| Coverage | One HTTP endpoint | HTTP plus DNS, TCP, ICMP, or gRPC | Additional modules help isolate dependencies instead of reporting every problem as an HTTP outage. |
| Operations | Self-hosted exporter, Prometheus, and Alertmanager | Managed Prometheus or hosted black-box monitoring | Self-hosting provides control but requires upgrades, security, capacity, and incident ownership; managed hosting reduces operational work but adds provider and network dependencies. |
A practical rollout sequence
- Deploy Blackbox Exporter where it has the intended network vantage point.
- Create the minimal
http_2xxmodule. - Add the Prometheus
/probescrape job and a separate exporter/metricsjob. - Run direct probes against one health endpoint and one normal web URL.
- Confirm labels, especially
instance, in Prometheus queries. - Add a sustained
probe_success == 0alert with an operator-chosen window. - Connect Prometheus to Alertmanager and test routing without paging the entire organization.
- Add latency, TLS-expiry, and dependency probes only where they answer a specific operational question.
- Document the probe location, timeout, expected status, body rules, and owner for each target.
- Review false positives and missed failures after real deployments, DNS changes, and certificate renewals.
What this setup can and cannot prove
A successful probe proves that the selected exporter, network path, DNS resolver, TLS stack, and request rules observed a healthy response at that moment. It does not prove that every region, user, browser flow, authenticated account, or downstream feature is healthy. Use multiple probe locations and complementary application telemetry when those questions matter.
Conversely, a failed probe is evidence of a problem from that vantage point, not automatically proof that the application process is broken. Resolver outages, egress policy, certificate trust, firewall rules, and exporter failures can all produce a failed result. The separate exporter scrape, dependency modules, and timing metrics are what make the alert actionable rather than merely alarming.
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