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Health Check Policy

Policy name

Health Check

Summary

Monitors API upstream health at specific intervals

Category

Quality of Service

First Flex Gateway version available

v1.4.0

Returned Status Codes

No return codes exist for this policy.

Summary

The Health Check policy enables you to check connection attempts to a specific endpoint and sends you an email alert if the connection status changes.

The Health Check policy monitors your API by making GET requests to the specified API base path. You must specify a base path with a GET request. Requests are made at a fixed schedule every minute with the first request occuring a minute after the policy is applied.

When you configure Health Check, specify a response code for the GET request that indicates a healthy connection. For example, the status code of an active API should return 200, indicating the API can receive connections. The platform sends an email alert when the status code is not 200. Health Check only validates the response code, so what is returned to the endpoint is unimportant.

No logging event appears for healthy responses. Flex Gateway logs only unhealthy responses.

You can use any 1xx, 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, or 5xx response codes. However, if you expect successful connections to your endpoints, 2xx response codes are ideal. Only a number response code is accepted.

You are required to create an alert for the Health Check policy. Applying the policy navigates you to the Create Alert page, where you must create an alert. For information about how to configure your alert, visit Using Flex Gateway API Alerts.

Applying the Health Check policy to API Instances with an outbound TLS context also applied causes the Health Check policy to return an unhealthy connection.

Configuring Policy Parameters

Flex Gateway Local Mode

The Health Check policy is not supported in Local Mode.

Flex Gateway Connected Mode

When you apply the policy to your API from the UI, a list of parameters is displayed:

Element Description Required?

Upstream URL

The full URL of the API upstream you are monitoring

Yes

Base path

The HTTP path of the GET method that is requested during health checks

Yes

Response code

The expected status code of the GET request specified in the base path. Only a number response code is accepted.

Yes