# Health Check _**Note:** This feature was [introduced][ce-3888] in GitLab 8.8_ GitLab provides a health check endpoint for uptime monitoring on the `health_check` web endpoint. The health check reports on the overall system status based on the status of the database connection, the state of the database migrations, and the ability to write and access the cache. This endpoint can be provided to uptime monitoring services like [Pingdom][pingdom], [Nagios][nagios-health], and [NewRelic][newrelic-health]. ## Access Token An access token needs to be provided while accessing the health check endpoint. The current accepted token can be found on the `admin/heath_check` page of your GitLab instance. ![access token](img/health_check_token.png) The access token can be passed as a url parameter: `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check.json?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` or as a http header: ```bash curl -H "TOKEN: ACCESS_TOKEN" https://gitlab.example.com/health_check.json ``` ## Using the Endpoint Once you have the access token, health information can be retrieved as plain text, JSON, or XML using the `health_check` endpoint: - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check.json?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check.xml?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` You can also ask for the status of specific services: - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check/cache.json?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check/database.json?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` - `https://gitlab.example.com/health_check/migrations.json?token=ACCESS_TOKEN` Example output: ```bash curl -H "TOKEN: ACCESS_TOKEN" https://gitlab.example.com/health_check.json {"healthy":true,"message":"success"} ``` ## Status On failure the endpoint will return a `500` http status code. On success the endpoint will return a valid successful http status code, and a `success` message. Ideally your uptime monitoring should look for the success message. [ce-3888]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/3888 [pingdom]: https://www.pingdom.com [nagios-health]: https://nagios-plugins.org/doc/man/check_http.html [newrelic-health]: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/alert-policies/downtime-alerts/availability-monitoring