Health Check
Health Checks are used to determine the state of your Umbraco project. Learn more about each of them in this section.
The Settings section of the Umbraco backoffice holds a dashboard named "Health Check". It is a handy list of checks to see if your Umbraco installation is configured according to best practices. It's possible to add your custom-built health checks.
For inspiration when building your checks you can look at the checks we've built into Umbraco, as well as our guides. Some examples will follow in this document.
Built-in checks
Umbraco comes with the following checks by default:
Category Configuration
Macro errors (id:
D0F7599E-9B2A-4D9E-9883-81C7EDC5616F
) - checks that the errors are set toinline
so that pages that error will still load (and shows a small error message)Notification Email Settings (id:
3E2F7B14-4B41-452B-9A30-E67FBC8E1206
) - checks that the "from" email address used for email notifications has been changed from its default value
Category Data Integrity
Database data integrity check (id:
73DD0C1C-E0CA-4C31-9564-1DCA509788AF
) - checks for data integrity issues in the Umbraco database
Category Live Environment
Debug Compilation Mode (id:
61214FF3-FC57-4B31-B5CF-1D095C977D6D
) - should be set todebug="false"
on your live site
Category Permissions
Folder & File Permissions (id:
53DBA282-4A79-4B67-B958-B29EC40FCC23
) - checks that the folders and files set with write permissions that are either required or recommended can be accessed
Category Security
Application URL Configuration (id:
6708CA45-E96E-40B8-A40A-0607C1CA7F28
) - checks if the Umbraco application URL is configured for your site.Click-Jacking Protection (id:
ED0D7E40-971E-4BE8-AB6D-8CC5D0A6A5B0
) - checks to see if a header or meta-tag is in place to indicate whether the site can be hosted in an IFRAME. Normally this is best set to deny permission for this to be done, to prevent what is known as click-jacking attacksContent/MIME Sniffing Protection (id:
1CF27DB3-EFC0-41D7-A1BB-EA912064E071
) - checks that your site contains a header used to protect against Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) sniffing vulnerabilitiesCookie hijacking and protocol downgrade attacks Protection (HSTS) (id:
E2048C48-21C5-4BE1-A80B-8062162DF124
) - checks if your HTTPS site contains the Strict-Transport-Security Header (HSTS). If not - adds with a default of 18 weeksCross-site scripting Protection (id:
F4D2B02E-28C5-4999-8463-05759FA15C3A
) - checks for the presence of the X-XSS-Protection-headerExcessive Headers (id:
92ABBAA2-0586-4089-8AE2-9A843439D577
) - checks to ensure that specific headers that can provide details about the technology used to build and host the website have been removedHTTPS Configuration (id:
EB66BB3B-1BCD-4314-9531-9DA2C1D6D9A7
) - to determine if the current site is running on a secure connectionUseHttps check - when the site is running on HTTPS,
Umbraco.Cms.Core.Configuration.Models.GlobalSettings.UseHttps
needs to be enabled to secure the backoffice. The setting can be found underUmbraco:CMS:Global
in theappsettings.json
file
Category Services
SMTP Settings (id:
1B5D221B-CE99-4193-97CB-5F3261EC73DF
) - checks that an Simple Mail Tranfer Protocol (SMTP) server is configured and is accepting requests for sending emails
Each check returns a message indicating whether or not the issue in question has been found on the website installation. This could be an error that should be fixed, or a warning you should be aware of.
Some of them can also be rectified via the dashboard, by clicking the Fix button and in some cases providing some required information. These changes usually involve writing to configuration files that will often trigger a restart of the website.
Configuring and scheduling checks
You can view the results of health checks via the Settings section dashboard. Additionally, you can set up the checks to be run on a schedule and be notified of the results by email. It's also possible to disable certain checks if they aren't applicable in your environment.
For more information, see the Reference > Configuration > Health checks article.
Custom checks
You can build your own health checks. There are two types of health checks you can build: configuration checks and general checks.
Each health check is a class that needs to have a HealthCheck
attribute. This attribute has a few things you need to fill in:
GUID - a unique ID that you've generated for this specific check
Name - give it a short name so people know what the check is for
Description - describes what the check does in detail
Group - this is the category for the check if you use an existing group name (like "Configuration") the check will be added in that category, otherwise a new category will appear in the dashboard
Configuration checks
These are small checks that take an IConfiguration key and confirm that the value that's expected is there. If the value is not correct, there will be a link to a guide on how to set this value correct.
A configuration check needs to inherit from
Umbraco.Cms.Core.HealthChecks.Checks.AbstractSettingsCheck
A configuration check needs the
HealthCheck
attribute as noted at the start of this documentReadMoreLink
is a link to an external guide that will help you to troubleshoot any problemsValueComparisonType
can either beValueComparisonType.ShouldEqual
orValueComparisonType.ShouldNotEqual
ItemPath
is the IConfiguration key path leading to the configuration value that you want to verifyValues
is a list of values that are available for this configuration item - in this example it can beRemoteOnly
orOn
, they're both acceptable for a live site.For checks using the
ShouldEqual
comparison method, make sure to set one of these values toIsRecommended = true
.Where
ShouldNotEqual
is used the fix will require the user to provide the correct setting
CurrentValue
is the current value from the configuration settingCheckSuccessMessage
andCheckErrorMessage
are the messages returned to the userIt is highly recommended to use the
LocalizedTextService
so these can be localized. You can add the text in~/Config/Lang/en-US.user.xml
(or whatever language you like)
An example check:
General checks
This can be anything you can think of, the results and the rectify action are entirely under your control.
A general check needs to inherit from
Umbraco.Cms.Core.HealthChecks.HealthCheck
A general check needs the
HealthCheck
attribute as noted at the start of this documentAll checks run when the dashboard is loaded, this means that the
GetStatus()
method gets executedYou can return multiple status checks from
GetStatus()
A status check returns a
HealthCheckStatus
If a
HealthCheckStatus
has aHealthCheckAction
defined then the "Fix" button will perform that action once clickedSometimes, the button to fix something should not be called "Fix", change the
Name
property of aHealthCheckAction
to provide a better nameHealthCheckAction
has aDescription
property so that you can provide information on what clicking the "Rectify" button will do (or provide links to documentation, for example)HealthCheckStatus
has a few result levels:StatusResultType.Success
StatusResultType.Error
StatusResultType.Warning
StatusResultType.Info
A
HealthCheckAction
needs to provide an alias for an action that can be picked up in theExecuteAction
method
It is highly recommended to use the
LocalizedTextService
so text can be localized. You can add the text in~/Config/Lang/en-US.user.xml
(or whatever language you like)
An example check:
Custom health check notifications
Health check notifications can be scheduled to run periodically and notify you of the results. Included with Umbraco is a notification method to deliver the results via email. In a similar manner to how it's possible to create your health checks, you can also create custom notification methods. These methods can send the message summarizing the status of the health checks via other means. Again, for further details on implementing this please refer to the existing notification methods within the core code base.
Each notification method needs to implement the core interface IHealthCheckNotificationMethod
and, for ease of creation, can inherit from the base class NotificationMethodBase
, which itself implements the IHealthCheckNotificationMethod
interface. The class must also be decorated with an instance of the HealthCheckNotificationMethod
attribute. There's one method to implement - SendAsync(HealthCheckResults results)
. This method is responsible for taking the results of the health checks and sending them via the mechanism of your choice.
The following example shows how the core method for sending notification via email is implemented:
If a custom configuration is required for a custom notification method, the following extract can be merged in the appsettings.json
file. This will enable the email notification method to be configured:
If you want to get the notifications by email, Simple Mail Tranfer Protocol (SMTP) settings should also be configured in the same JSON file.
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