# How are people monitoring by exception?
**URL:** https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687
**Category:** General
**Created:** [3 June 2020 01:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687 "2020-06-03T01:35:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@craigcurtin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/craigcurtin)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 01:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/1 "2020-06-03T01:35:19Z")
Guys,
Wondering what people are using for automated management by exception of your systems ? I have at the moment 14 different Tasmota/Sonoff devices scattered around and doing various tasks - some of them only do something once a day (or once a night etc) - it would be nice to have a system to monitor if their tasks have completed (and/or) is the device alive and report on any failures/deviations.
Are people using Offboard tools for this (MRTG, Nagios, etc etc) or specialised flows ?
Craig
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### Author:  [@Bobo](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Bobo)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 02:51 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/2 "2020-06-03T02:51:25Z")
NR running a "sentinel" flow is what I use, and surely easier than introducing another tool.
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### Author:  [@krambriw](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/krambriw)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 04:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/3 "2020-06-03T04:29:24Z")
My "main rpi" is responsible for monitoring & checking all other distributed units (rpi's, esp's etc). All those distributed units provide various services to my main home automation. Some services are expected to provide data at a regular interval, others on demand or just executing some stuff/commands at certain dates & times or situations
To be sure they are all alive and healthy, I communicate with them using mqtt. Either by sending out commands and expecting valid answers back or just awaiting expected data at regular interval. Some of my services may be a NR flow, a Python script, an application etc etc
All services will also try to "heal themselves" by restarting if something goes wrong and if no success, finally also reboot the device itself, hopefully to resolve the issue. So far this has worked as I expected
To monitor all this, my "main rpi" has a flow as below. Each and every service out there has a dedicated trigger node that is "energized" regularly with responses coming from each service. If responses would stop, the trigger node will fire an event message that is sent out via Telegram
An overall system status is captured using the "status node". I use this in my GUI's, providing a visual indicator of the overall system status
To monitor that the "main rpi" Node-RED flow itself is working, it simply sends out a heartbeat that is monitored & reported by one of the other distributed rpi's. Closing the loop so to say
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### Author:  [@craigcurtin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/craigcurtin)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 05:21 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/4 "2020-06-03T05:21:57Z")
Nice approach - thanks for taking the time to answer
Craig
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### Author:  [@bakman2](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/bakman2)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 05:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/5 "2020-06-03T05:34:02Z")
Some time ago I posted a flow to create a network map (does not adhere to your requirements, but it is an idea), if it is only sonoff you are interested in, you could use the LWT for device availability.
[https://flows.nodered.org/flow/4b940430b92142571c670050f4d98f6d](https://flows.nodered.org/flow/4b940430b92142571c670050f4d98f6d)
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### Author:  [@craigcurtin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/craigcurtin)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 05:38 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/6 "2020-06-03T05:38:26Z")
thats a nice starting place !! Interesting that no one yet seems to have gone for an external solution - will wait and see what else comes up as people wake up/come home
Craig
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### Author:  [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 06:05 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/7 "2020-06-03T06:05:57Z")
MQTT already has Last Will and Testament (LWT) baked into the protocol exactly for this purpose. The sensor lodges a message with the broker, that the broker then sends if the sensor goes offline unexpectedly.
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### Author:  [@Christian-Me](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Christian-Me)
#### Post date: [3 June 2020 06:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/8 "2020-06-03T06:34:46Z")
I use:
> [@\[Announce\] remote device table (and collaboration wanted)](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/announce-remote-device-table-and-collaboration-wanted/22505):
>
> Hello after a lot of work (perhaps too much work) I like to share my first beta version of a flow to display the status of remote devices on the dashboard. It is always good to have an eye on your sensors and actuators especially when they are connected wireless or battery powered. The flow first developed around my homie-convention-node but soon I decided to make it more versatile because I have devices around the house which not support the homie convention. [teaser] Currently supported are…
For all my remote (wireless) devices using all kind of techniques to observe the status including MQTT-LWT. Should be expandable for tasmota too.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [2 August 2020 06:34 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/how-are-people-monitoring-by-exception/27687/9 "2020-08-02T06:34:56Z")
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