--- title: conf/monitors slug: ps/help/en_us/vtm/config/confmonitors docTags: createdAt: 2026-08-02T08:50:32.689Z --- The conf/monitors directory contains configuration files for backend node monitors. The name of a file is the name of the monitor it defines. Monitors can be configured under the Catalogs > Monitors section of the Admin Server UI or by using functions under the Catalog.Monitor section of the SOAP API and CLI. | Key | Description | | ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | back\_off | Should the monitor slowly increase the delay after it has failed?
Value type: Yes / No
Default value: "Yes" | | delay | The minimum time between calls to a monitor.
Value type: seconds
Default value: "3" | | failures | The number of times in a row that a node must fail execution of the monitor before it is classed as unavailable.
Value type: unsigned integer
Default value: "3" | | health\_only | Should this monitor only report health (ignore load)?
Value type: Yes / No
Default value: "No" | | machine | The machine to monitor, where relevant this should be in the form \:\, for "ping" monitors the :\ part must not be specified.
Requires: scope is set to "poolwide"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | max\_response\_len | The maximum amount of data to read back from a server, use 0 for unlimited.
Value type: bytes
Default value: "2048" | | note | A description of the monitor.
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | scope | A monitor can either monitor each node in the pool separately and disable an individual node if it fails, or it can monitor a specific machine and disable the entire pool if that machine fails. GLB location monitors must monitor a specific machine.
Value type: enumeration
Default value: "pernode"
Permitted values:
pernode: Node: Monitor each node in the pool separately
poolwide: Pool/GLB: Monitor a specified machine | | timeout | The maximum runtime for an individual instance of the monitor.
Value type: seconds
Default value: "3" | | type | The internal monitor implementation of this monitor.
Value type: enumeration
Default value: "ping"
Permitted values:
ping: Ping monitor
connect: TCP Connect monitor
http: HTTP monitor
tcp\_transaction: TCP transaction monitor
program: External program monitor
sip: SIP monitor
rtsp: RTSP monitor | | udp\_accept\_all | If this monitor uses UDP, should it accept responses from any IP and port?
Value type: Yes / No
Default value: "No" | | use\_ssl | Whether or not the monitor should connect using SSL.
Requires: can\_use\_ssl is set to "Yes"
Value type: Yes / No
Default value: "No" | | verbose | Whether or not the monitor should emit verbose logging. This is useful for diagnosing problems.
Value type: Yes / No
Default value: "No" | | Additional keys used when type is "http" | | | authentication | The HTTP basic-auth \:\ to use for the test HTTP request.
Requires: type is set to "http"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | body\_regex | A regular expression that the HTTP response body must match. If the response body content doesn't matter then set this to .\* (match anything).
Requires: type is set to "http"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | host\_header | The host header to use in the test HTTP request.
Requires: type is set to "http"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | path | The path to use in the test HTTP request. This must be a string beginning with a / (forward slash).
Requires: type is set to "http"
Value type: string
Default value: "/" | | status\_regex | A regular expression that the HTTP status code must match. If the status code doesn't matter then set this to .\* (match anything).
Requires: type is set to "http"
Value type: string
Default value: "^\[234]\[0-9]\[0-9]$" | | Additional keys used when type is "program" | | | arg!\* | The arguments that will be passed to the program. For example, to specify the argument --foo=bar as part of the program's command-line you set the key arg!foo to the value bar.
Requires: type is set to "program"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | describe!\* | A description for the argument specified in place of the \* character. For example, to describe the argument in the example for arg!\* you could specify the description as the value for the key describe!foo.
Requires: type is set to "program"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | program | The program to run. This must be an executable file, either within the conf/scripts directory or specified as an absolute path to some other location on the filesystem.
Requires: type is set to "program"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | Additional keys used when type is "rtsp" | | | rtsp\_body\_regex | The regular expression that the RTSP response body must match.
Requires: type is set to "rtsp"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | rtsp\_path | The path to use in the RTSP request (some servers will return 500 Internal Server Error unless this is a valid media file).
Requires: type is set to "rtsp"
Value type: string
Default value: "/" | | rtsp\_status\_regex | The regular expression that the RTSP response status code must match.
Requires: type is set to "rtsp"
Value type: string
Default value: "^\[234]\[0-9]\[0-9]$" | | Additional keys used when type is "sip" | | | sip\_body\_regex | The regular expression that the SIP response body must match.
Requires: type is set to "sip"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | sip\_status\_regex | The regular expression that the SIP response status code must match.
Requires: type is set to "sip"
Value type: string
Default value: "^\[234]\[0-9]\[0-9]$" | | sip\_transport | Which transport protocol the SIP monitor will use to query the server.
Requires: type is set to "sip"
Value type: enumeration
Default value: "udp"
Permitted values:
udp: UDP
tcp: TCP | | Additional keys used when type is "tcp\_transaction" | | | close\_string | An optional string to write to the server before closing the connection.
Requires: type is set to "tcp\_transaction"
Value type: string
Default value: \ | | response\_regex | A regular expression to match against the response from the server.
Requires: type is set to "tcp\_transaction"
Value type: string
Default value: ".+" | | write\_string | The string to write down the TCP connection.
Requires: type is set to "tcp\_transaction"
Value type: string
Default value: \ |