How site verification works
Uptime Monitor only checks a site after its owner proves control of it. The proof is a single line of text at the site's root. It stays valid until you remove it.
Why we ask
Every check is a request from quiescence.eu to someone's server. Asking for proof first means we only ever send those requests to sites whose owners asked for them, and nobody can point the service at a site they do not run.
Three steps
- Generate the line. In your Uptime Monitor console, add the site. The console gives you a verification line made for your account and that site.
- Upload it. Save it as
quiescence.eu.txtat the root of the site, so it opens athttps://your-site/quiescence.eu.txt. It may also go inrobots.txtorrobot.txtat the root, as a line of its own. We read only these three files, and the site must answer with the file itself: a redirect to another address does not count. - Press Verify. We fetch the file once, from the network you are using, and checking starts as soon as the line is found.
What the line looks like
One line, on its own: the words uptime check allowed for quiescence.eu, a space, and a token. The token is the
SHA-256 hash of your IP address followed by the time it was made, to the millisecond. This example is built from
a documentation address, so it matches no one:
uptime check allowed for quiescence.eu fec52565aa0cf18f57d7cf5b3ac728503b8992d2d6f7d46da1d1201090902b021761480000000The token is tied to your account and to that site: another account cannot use your file. When you press Verify, it must also come from the network that generated it.
How long it lasts
As long as the file is there. About once a day we read it again, and nothing else on the site. If the site answers but the file is gone, or no longer holds the line, that counts as a miss. After 2 misses in a row, about a day apart, monitoring of that site stops. You get an e-mail at the first miss and another when it stops. Nothing is deleted: put the file back, press Verify, and everything resumes.
If the site does not answer at all, that is never a miss. The site may simply be down, which is exactly when you need monitoring.
Stopping
Remove the file from the site's root, or delete the site in your console. Either way, checking stops and no request is sent to it again.