Admin and roles

The Admin link in the top menu opens the admin pages. It opens the page you used last. A super admin and a supervisor see this link. A tech lead does not.

Roles

Monita has three roles.

A user has one role. A project has one owner. A tech lead owns the projects they create. A super admin can reassign a project to another tech lead in Settings, General.

What a supervisor cannot do or see

A supervisor reads and never writes.

• Every request that changes something answers 403. Only GET and HEAD work.
• The pages hide the New, Edit, Delete and Save controls.
• A heartbeat page shows no ping URL. With it, a supervisor could keep a dead job alive.
• A monitor shows header names but (hidden) for the values. It shows (hidden) for the request body, the sign-in user name and anything after ? in the URL, where tokens such as ?apikey= live. The monitor page says so.
• An alert setting shows (hidden) for a webhook URL, because the URL works as a credential.
• Secret values never show to anyone.

A project owner cannot become a supervisor. A supervisor is never offered as an owner.

User management

Admin, User management lists every account, 20 a page. A super admin does everything here. A supervisor reads the list.

Invite a user

1. Select Invite new user.
2. Enter the email address.
3. Pick a role: Tech lead (manages the projects they own), Supervisor (sees everything and changes nothing) or Super admin (manages every project, the users and the system settings).
4. Select Send invite.

Monita emails a sign-up link. The link works once and expires in 72 hours. The page also shows the link with a copy button, in case the email does not arrive. The accounts limit is 500.

Find and filter

Each row shows the user's picture, or their initial when they have none.

• Search by email narrows the list.
• The Role filter has Any role, Super admin, Supervisor and Tech lead.
• The Status filter has Any status, Active, Invited and Disabled.
• Click a column head to sort by user, role, status or when the account was added.

Act on users

Open the menu on a row for one user. Or tick the boxes on several rows. The title bar then shows how many are selected and the actions that fit.

You cannot act on your own account. A disabled user can only be enabled. A batch skips the users it does not fit and says how many. Each action asks you to confirm.

Your picture

Open the avatar menu and select User settings. Profile opens. Select Choose a picture, pick a PNG, JPEG or WebP file, then select Save picture. Monita crops it to a square. The top bar shows it in place of your initial, and other signed-in users see it in the user list and as the owner of your projects. Remove picture goes back to the initial.

Your password

Open the avatar menu, select User settings, then Password. Enter your current password and the new one twice, then select Change password. The new password needs 8 characters or more. Your other sessions sign out; this one stays. An account gets 10 tries in each 15-minute window.

Two-factor sign-in

Each user can ask for a code after the password. Open the avatar menu, select User settings, then Two-factor sign-in. While it is off, a note under the top bar says so. Close the note with its X; this browser then stops showing it for your account.

1. Enter your Current password and select Turn on.
2. Scan the QR code with the authenticator app on your phone. If you cannot scan it, type the key into the app, or select Open in authenticator app on the phone itself. Any app that reads time-based codes works, such as 1Password, Google Authenticator or Authy.
3. Enter the 6-digit code the app shows and select Turn on. Do it within 10 minutes; after that, select Turn on again for a new key.
4. Save the 10 recovery codes. Monita shows them only once. Each code signs you in once without the phone.

Sign-in then asks for the code after the password. Five wrong codes or five minutes send you back to the password. A code works once. An account takes 10 wrong codes in each 15-minute window (the windows start at :00, :15, :30 and :45), across sign-ins and the turn-off form; after that every code waits until the window ends.

To turn it off, enter a code or a recovery code on the same page. A super admin can turn it off for another user (see Act on users). If nobody can sign in to turn it off, run monita admin reset-sign-in --email <address> on the server. See Lost authenticator and recovery codes. A super admin can also run monita admin reset-password. A supervisor can turn it on for their own account.

Rate limits

Admin, Rate limits holds the limits a super admin can change. They keep Monita fast and stop one visitor or app from overloading it. The defaults suit most teams. Change one only when something hits it. A change applies without a restart.

Each row shows its default under the box. Select Save limits to apply your changes, or Discard changes to reset the form.

• Pings per second for one heartbeat: extra pings in the same second are turned away. The first one still keeps the heartbeat alive.
• Bug reports per user per day: Monita knows the user by their ref ID.

Below the form, Built-in maximums lists the numbers Monita stops at, with how many are in use. You cannot change them. When a list reaches its maximum, adding one more is refused. See Limits.

Outgoing email

Admin, Outgoing email sets the mail server for alerts, digests and invites. It has three sections.

Mail server

The section says which server Monita uses:

1. The server saved on this page.
2. Otherwise MONITA_SMTP_URL from the settings file. Saving a server here replaces it.
3. Otherwise none. Monita writes each email to its log.

Select Test connection to try the values in the form before you save. It reports "Connected to ... and signed in" or the error. Select Save changes to use them. The next email uses the new server. Remove saved server goes back to MONITA_SMTP_URL. See Operations.

Monita stores the password as you enter it, because it must send it to the server.

Send a test email

Enter Send it to (it starts as your own address) and select Send test email. Monita sends it now and shows the result on the page: "Sent to ...", the error, or a note that no server is set and the email went to the log. Check the inbox and the spam folder. The test email goes straight to the server, so the rule below does not apply to it.

Mail to Monita's own address

Monita drops an email addressed to its own sender address, the From of the saved server or else MONITA_MAIL_FROM. That mail would only return to the mailbox that sent it. The comparison ignores case. Monita sends it anyway when an active user signs in with that address. The rule covers every email that goes through the queue: alerts, digests, invites and card tests. It does not cover Send test email.

Email delivery

A badge reads Sending or Log only. The section shows the mail server, the time of the last send, and three counts: Sent in N days, Waiting or retrying and Gave up. After a failure it shows the last error.

Locations

A super admin adds a location, a machine that runs monita probe and checks monitors from another place. Locations explains how to add one and pick it on a monitor.

Telegram

Admin, Telegram sets the global Telegram bot. Projects then pick Global Telegram and connect a chat with a link, with no token of their own.

With no bot, the page shows Not set and three steps from BotFather above the token field. With a bot, it shows Set up, the bot's @name and Open in Telegram. Replace token shows the token field again. Remove bot deletes the bot.

1. In Telegram, open @BotFather and send /newbot.
2. Pick a name and a username for the bot.
3. Copy the token BotFather sends. Paste it in Bot token and select Save token. Monita checks the token with Telegram first.

Use a bot for Monita alone: Monita reads the bot's messages to find connect links, so a bot that sends its messages to a webhook is refused. Remove bot stops every alert that uses it until a bot is set again. Pages never show the token; a supervisor sees the bot's name only.

Time zone

The team's pages show every time on each person's own computer clock, daylight saving included, with no zone name. Charts and the hourly bars follow the same clock.

Admin, Time zone sets the offset the public status page uses. Pick it under Show times in, for example UTC+7: Jakarta (WIB), Bangkok, Hanoi, and select Save changes.

• The offset is fixed. The status page does not follow daylight saving. Change it by hand when your clock changes.
• The status page shows its times in this offset, and its 90 days start at midnight in this offset.
• Monita stores times in UTC. The daily summaries and the month chart still count UTC days. At UTC+7 a month-chart day runs 07:00 to 07:00.
• Ticket daily caps, data retention and the daily digest hour follow UTC. The page says when the digest goes out, in UTC and in the offset you pick. Change the hour with MONITA_DIGEST_UTC_HOUR.

System information

Admin, System information shows how the server is set up, read from its settings file: the mode, the address people open, where it listens, the data file, backups, how long data is kept, and whether it runs behind a proxy. To change a value, edit the settings file and restart Monita. Run monita whereis on the server to find the file. See Configuration.