UDP monitoring
Probe connectionless UDP services.
A UDP monitor sends a payload to a host and port and optionally checks the response — for services that don't use TCP.
How it works
UptimeAlien sends your payload and matches the reply against an expected substring; no reply or no match marks the monitor down.
When to use it
- DNS-over-UDP, NTP and game servers
- Custom UDP protocols
- VoIP / SIP endpoints
What you get
Response match, latency, uptime and incidents.
Example
ntp.acme.com:123
Frequently asked questions
What is UDP monitoring?
A UDP monitor sends a payload you define to a host and port and compares the reply against an expected substring. If no reply arrives or it doesn't match, the check fails.
Why does UDP need its own monitor type?
UDP is connectionless — there is no handshake to succeed or fail, so a TCP-style check doesn't apply. The only way to tell whether a UDP service works is to send it something and look at what comes back.
Which services is this for?
Typical cases are DNS resolvers, NTP servers, syslog receivers, VPN endpoints and game servers, which all speak UDP rather than TCP.
What do I put in the payload?
Whatever the service expects as a valid request, plus a substring you know appears in a healthy reply. What that looks like depends entirely on the protocol you are probing.